Well… Should I Bring My Dog or Not? UX Usability Testing of the National Parks Website.

The National Parks in the United States attracts millions of people every year from all over the world. In fact, they receive close to as many visits as there are people in the United States. Going to the National Parks can be an amazing experience as the parks hold some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes the planet has to offer attracting people from all parts of the globe.

While park visits can be magical, they can also have their downsides for both visitors and the park staff. With so many people visiting the park and limited staff to enforce rules and regulations, there is plenty that can affect one’s experience while visiting. Not to mention put visitors in danger.

This prompted me to take a look at the National Parks website to see how effectively the National Park Service was communicating with visitors before they entered the park. Based on my own experience going to National Parks, I knew that you can prepare yourself before you go and when you get there, one receives a brochure with park information upon arrival. But at times if you are looking for particular information before you enter, it can be difficult to find through the Park’s websites. If certain information is hard to find for visitors or if rules and regulations aren’t easily accessible or overlooked then this can only impact the Park staff and other visitors.

Park visitors and staff need a more efficient way to communicate information to deliver a better overall experience for everyone involved.

Assessing Usability

Assessing the Parks website’s usability allows us to identify potential obstacles to users visiting the site and how we might address those issues to improve user experience. To do this, I performed usability tests on five participants and asked each tester to fill out a short survey after.

To perform the test I created a scenario and a few tasks for each user to enact while visiting the site. Based on my own previous experience visiting the parks while usually traveling with my dog and various camera accessories including a drone, I knew that there were rules and regulations for both which would create some appropriate parameters to work within for the test. The Parks will usually allow pets on leash within 100 feet of a roadway or parking lot but not on trails as they can pose a threat to flora and fauna in the park. While drone use is strictly prohibited in the park altogether as it can disturb wildlife and visitors. With these parameters, I created a scenario where the user would be traveling to California with their family and dog while having received a drone for Christmas they were excited to use. From here they were given tasks to:

• Go to www.nps.gov
• Find parks in California
• Find Joshua Tree
• Find out what is required to enter the park
• Find any necessary rules and regulations

Findings

Before conducting the test I did my own heuristic analysis. I found that while the site wasn’t overly complicated, I had trouble finding certain information that at times was not where I expected to find it, slightly affecting its learnability. The site’s information architecture was overwhelming and took longer than necessary to navigate, highly affecting its efficiency. Based on efficiency in finding information, completing tasks would seem difficult to replicate during further visits, affecting its memorability. All of which highly impacted my overall satisfaction using the site.

User journey map (and Bernie mittens)

Validating most of my heuristic analysis I found that most of the test participants ran into similar issues:

• Drone info was incredibly hard to come by
• Users have a natural inclination to look in the “Photography” section for drone info
• Park hours vs. Visitor Center hours were confusing
• Users were not interested in watching a video about dogs in the “Pets” section of the site
• Safety information was not conveniently available. Took longer than necessary to find.
• Users used different methods to arrive at Joshua Tree sub-site. At times confusing.
• Inconvenient to purchase passes and find campground info off-site on recreation.gov
• Inconvenient that when linked to recreation.gov from Joshua Tree sub-site, user had to then search for Joshua Tree. info.
• Couldn’t find lifetime and Military pass info on the fees page.
• Almost every user tried a different way to find the park they were looking for from the home page
• Once at the “Find a park/ California” page, some users tried to find the park website or information for the park through the interactive map, only to find that they could not access park info from the map.
• Dogs on trail policy not readily available (easily missed)

The interactive map doesn’t take you to the the page for the corresponding park.

Too many items to navigate through the menu.

Survey Responses

1=Poor, 5=Great

1=Hard, 5=Easy

1=Not at all, 5=Very

1=Not very, 5=Very

When asked what would make this site easier to use, respondents said:

• “Wanted to find out about the use of drones and was never able to find the information”
• “Add a rules section to basic info. Encourage users to use the search bar more since I found everything pretty easily that way.”
• “Better descriptors”
• “Better navigation and information structure.”
• “Combining the park details and admission purchase on the same web page.”

In addition to conducting live usability tests, accessibility standards were analyzed as well, returning a number of issues across the site. Some issues included: missing form labels that provide information to screen readers. Color contrast errors were present, affecting users with low visibility from being able to see certain content. Redundant links were present that results in additional navigation for screen readers and keyboard users. Heading errors were present that may affect page navigation for users using assistive devices (this affects the whole page).

Redundant links make navigating the site harder for screen reader and keyboard users.

Low contrast with small type can affect users with low visability.

Missing headers can affect navigation for those using accessibility devices.

Insights and Recomendations

From the results of testing, I could conclude that certain issues stood out to go about making recommendations as to what needed work.

• Rules and regulations are not easily accessible and found scattered across the site
• Pet info is confusing and video is not of interest
• Finding a park from NPS.gov main site is not straight forward and interactive map is not useful
• Site information is overwhelming and disorganized
• Site has accessibility issues
• Though most users had a difficult time navigating the site they reported a positive overall experience
• Linking offsite is inconvenient

This would lead me to the following recommendations:

• Reorganize information architecture
• Place all regulations and rules on one page
• Remove unnecessary content
• Make rules and regulations more clear
• Either make the interactive map for finding parks by state from NPS.gov connect you to actual parks or remove completely
• Either make pass and camping information available through the National Park Service website or streamline the user experience when redirecting to recreation.gov
• Address accessibility issues

Overall the site wouldn’t need a complete overhaul but there would need to be adjustments across the entire site and all park subsites. These changes could positively impact experiences for all parties involved. Having clear rules and regulations front and center can help visitors understand how they impact the park while creating less work for the staff. This could also help visitors avoid unnecessary surprises and fees for not following regulations they may not be aware of while improving the overall experience for everyone involved.