How I Evaluated the Bus Ēireann Website Using Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testing to Redesign the Journey Booking Functions and Improved the Customer Satisfaction Score.
Usability testing
6 min read
2020
Heuristic Evaluation
Affinity Diagram
Usability Testing
Miro
Content Analysis
Context
Why do infrequent users struggle with booking tickets on the Bus Éireann website? The Transport for Ireland sought to uncover the issues with their current ticket booking process. Tasked with this investigation, I conducted a series of evaluations to inform a redesign of the journey booking function on the website. The aim of the usability testing was to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the booking process, ensuring it is intuitive and easy to learn for both new and infrequent users.
Two forms of evaluation were conducted: an expert review using Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics and WCAG standards, and cognitive walkthroughs to identify specific user problems. Remote moderated user testing with a 'think aloud' approach was conducted with three participants of varying ages and experience levels, using both computers and mobile devices simultaneously. The evaluations identified critical issues on the homepage, journey planner, and ticket purchase interfaces, highlighting problems with navigation clarity, system feedback, and consistency. Based on these findings, recommendations for redesign focused on improving error prevention, consistency, and visibility of system status to enhance the overall user experience and make the ticket booking process more intuitive and efficient.
Figure 1: Homepage
Figure 2: Journey planner
Figure 3: Ticket purchase
“Site navigation example - Don’t Make Me Think”
Challenges
The biggest challenge in this task was conducting user research remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions. Without being physically present, it was difficult to observe users' non-verbal cues—such as facial expressions, body language, or subtle reactions to the interface—which are often key to understanding their experience. Additionally, technical issues like poor internet connections or software glitches could disrupt the sessions and impact the quality of the data.
To address these challenges, I focused on thorough preparation. I set clear expectations with participants in advance, ensuring they had the necessary setup. On the day of the session, I sent reminders with detailed instructions, including the session time, required equipment, app installations, how to join, and the importance of having a strong internet connection in a quiet space. I also ran a dry-run with my observer, having them join early so we could discuss areas of focus and ensure they were muted during the session.
During the test itself, I compensated for the lack of in-person observations by asking detailed follow-up questions to capture insights that non-verbal cues would typically reveal. Screen-sharing and session recording tools were essential in capturing user interactions, allowing me to gather valuable data despite the limitations of remote testing.
Evaluation Findings
Here is my favourite tool again: affinity map! Displaying the identified issues on an affinity map clearly shows me patterns and relationships between user pain points, helping to prioritise the most critical areas for improvement and guiding the redesign process more effectively.
The issues on the homepage centred around the clarity of the navigation design and violating the aesthetic and minimalist design.
The journey planner issues are centred under the category of “match between system and the real world” and “visibility of system status.” The options on the journey planner are displayed in an illogical and repetitive manner. The suggested possible bus stops during the search are confusing due to the order of the listing display and some suggestions are invalid.
The ticket purchase issues centred around “consistency and standards” and “user control and freedom”. The use of “Worldpay” is not common during online payment, which may be confusing for some users. Whilst the lack of payment methods is not a severe issue, the inflexibility to match with the current standards reduces the credibility and trustworthiness of the user experience.
Redesign
The redesign addressed issues related to the heuristics principles of “Error prevention,” “Consistency and standards,” and “Visibility of system status.”
The website’s visual hierarchy currently shows three site names, which can cause confusion. To improve consistency, the redesign suggests displaying a single, clear page title. The tab visuals were used to clarify the relationship between Bus Éireann, Expressway, and TFI as distinct services. Additionally, the journey planner's options are not aligned with how users typically search for tickets, leading to a mismatch with their mental model. The redesign proposes aligning the planner’s sequence with common user behaviour.
Since Expressway is part of Bus Éireann, the redesign suggests consistency between their homepages, particularly for the journey planner, to reduce cognitive load. The ticket purchase interface suffers from inconsistent design between the two sites. The redesign recommends uniform visuals and wording, offering more payment methods, and simplifying the purchase process by consolidating steps like “personal information,” “Add Product,” and payment options. Clear feedback on ticket selections should also be provided.
Limitation
The report showed many valuable results for improvement but the scale of the testing remains modest, which could not represent a vast user group. Measured metrics and interaction logs would gain quantitative rich data through web analytics, which would reflect a more holistic understanding and evaluate the findings from this report.
The fundamental issue revealed from the report was a problematic navigation. Examination of the sitemap showed the functional links and informative links were not separated and were categorised in a manner that showed little insight on how to use the site. In order to provide a tool for users to complete their goals and tasks in an effective and efficient way and reduce cognitive load, the information architecture of the site needs to be redesigned in order to organise the content in an easy-to-find and discoverable way.
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