6. Accessing www.irctc.co.in None of the test participants opened www.irctc.co.in from the search engine results http://www.indianrail.gov.in/ http://www.irctc.com The Reservation links opens www.irctc.co.in in a new browser window.
7. www.irctc.co.in Some users felt the website did not appear to be associated with Indian Railways. Users expected the Indian Railways logo Users expected atleast one picture depicting a train
8. Homepage ‘ Train Reservation’ launched a new window with a list of hyperlinks. Users finally resorted to Help but found that the link was “not working”. Other links explored by users. Some users could not make the “connection” between ‘Signup’ and ‘Register’. Login should come after searching the trains, when we want to book Airline booking does not require registration. So why should train booking? The Homepage provided no guidance to what the user must do. Users then explored other links Most users clicked here first as it seemed most obvious link to start searching for trains.
9. Task 1: Search Trains Home page Task Description Given a date, users were asked to find out if there were any trains to Chennai on that day. Search page View results User’s Mental Model Home page Search page View results Registered User? Login Register Y N Task Flow in the website
11. Registration (1) All fields in the form are mandatory Users felt the Registration was too long and cumbersome. Website assumes all users have an ‘Office Address’ Registration often failed due to poor response time. Very lengthy process. Prefer to go to station and book tickets Only advance users can login. Layman would not be able to register Want registration like Yahoo or Gmail, that's easy Users are asked to fill gender, marital status, occupation, etc.
12. Registration (2) Users often missed this error message and repeatedly attempted to submit this screen When informed of the error, users felt the password and confirm password fields should not have been shown.
13. Search Most users entered city names in the ‘From’ and ‘To’ fields instead of station code. Despite having few fields, the Search feature proved to be a considerable challenge. Even after reading the “definitions”, most users did not know the difference in the Ticket Type. Most selected this randomly as it is mandatory. One interviewee could not spell “Chennai”. Felt the website was not usable. When prompted, users explored other links hoping to find the Station Codes This error message was a major stumbling block. Users has no idea what went wrong.
14. Selecting the Station Many users felt they had to copy the station name from the list of stations below The field is in fact a filter for City name. I do not understand Station Code. It is irritating to find the code. There is no help in the site. Lack of instructions made simple things confusing to the users.
16. The RIGHT search criteria Field length is not adequate. The station code is “hidden”. The field still contain more than 4 characters.
17. Task 2: Compare Rates Task Description Given a budget, users were asked to find the best option across trains and classes. “ Best Option” is based purely on the user’s patience in exploring and refining search results Submit search Compare results Select best option User’s Mental Model Select Class Select train View fare Task Flow in the website Check availability
18. Search Results Train information should be in tables with cost on same page to compare. Information should be evenly distributed. Lengthy and frustrating. Better to call station master Users felt all of the displayed trains had available tickets. Multiple windows allows me to compare. The result is displayed in ‘Days of the Week’ though the criteria is date based Users are expected to Book Ticket even though no “decision making” information (Fare & Availability) is provided in the results. All such information is distributed among different pop-ups and is not available collectively.
19. Task 3: Book Tickets Task Description Having identified an option, users were asked to book their ticket. Select Train Book Ticket User’s Mental Model Task Flow in the website Select Train Book Ticket
20. Booking Form The ticket booking screen continued challenging the users. Options for quota are different from the Search screen Users faced difficulty understanding the terms… “ Select Master passenger” and “ Select passenger from Master list”. ‘ ID Card Holder’ field listed numbers instead of names. This confused the users.
21. Payment Users did not have an option of going to the list of banks from this screen. Replan takes the user back to the default booking page.
![The Acid Test ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)