The Great iQ User Test

July 2025 - FYI, I have decided to close this blog and migrate content back to my main website. I'll be updating the location of blog posts as I go along. You can read more about this here.

Next week myself and my colleagues in iQ Content will be running Ireland's biggest ever user test. This is us doing 'our bit' to support World Usability Day.
From 9am next Thursday 13th November we will be pulling in people off the street to test some of the country's top transport websites. This includes such chestnuts as:
  • Dublin Bus
  • Irish Rail
  • Ryanair
The aim is to guage just how easy they are to use by Séan and Síle Citizen. We will then collate our results and feed the information back to the site owners. If they have any sense, they will use this data as a starting point to improve their sites.

Lots of room for improvement

If my experience is anything to go by, we should be flooded with recommendations. 
For example, the Irish rail website is a truly abominable. 
I challenge any one to book anything on that site without at least one error. If nothing else, perhaps the press coverage this event will get may shame them into a few remedial fixes. 
PS - feel free to join us on the day, or afterwards for an extended post-mortem over a few drinks in the Dandelion. The address is below. 
Dandelion Café Bar
St. Stephen's Green
Dublin 2 

Click to read the full post » at Friday, November 07, 2008