TOAS - Usability Evaluation of Browsing Student Apartments and Submitting Housing Applications

Heuristic Evaluation | User Testing

Project's Basis

• Client: TOAS (toas.fi)
• Course: HTI.300 Usability Evaluation Methods", Tampere University
• Team: 5 members
• Target group: Under 25-year-old Finnish degree students who have not applied for housing from TOAS in the last six months

Goal

The goal was to evaluate the usability of toas.fi and its housing application form provided by Tampuuri. Both heuristic evaluation and user testing (including questionnaires and interviews) were used.

TOAS offers affordable rental housing for students living in the Tampere area, aiming to make students' lives easier by addressing their diverse housing needs. The housing selection can be browsed on the website of TOAS, and to obtain an apartment, students must submit an electronic application. The usability test focused on evaluating the following functions of the service:

• Searching, filtering, and browsing suitable apartment listings on the website
• Completing the housing application form

Usability was assessed from the perspective of browsing apartments and the application process: how easy it is to choose an apartment that fits the user's life situation and submit an application based on the selected apartment type or location. The completion of the application form was evaluated up until the point where the user had entered hypothetical information into the form, but the form was not submitted to the system. We concentrated on the desktop view (Finnish).

Target group

• Under 25-year-old students pursuing basic degree programs who have not applied for housing from X in the last six months
• International/exchange students were not included in the user testing

In practice, the usability tests did not take into account the English-language versions of the website and application form. This limitation was chosen to obtain a more detailed understanding of the issues faced by specific target groups, rather than gathering superficial information from a broader audience. Additionally, since the testing team members were Finnish-speaking, it was decided to focus on the Finnish version of the site to maximize the insights gained from the tests and ensure that language barriers did not become an obstacle or hinder the process.

My Role

• Project management
• Heuristic evaluation together with the team
• Recruiting test users
• Quality management
• Acting as a moderator, observer, and recorder on my turn during the interviews
• Providing improvement suggestions together with the team
• Active member of the team also in other tasks throughout the project

I received excellent feedback from my team and the teacher. The collaboration went smoothly, with humor included, and there was trust in my work. TOAS was super happy with our work, too, and rewarded as afterwards.

Heuristic Evaluation

Evaluation Methods Used

• Nielsen's heuristics
• David Travis' Web Usability Guidelines
• WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines (partially used)

Process

• Each team member independently searched for usability issues
• The findings were discussed together
• Overlapping issues were removed
• Remaining issues were compiled into a report with development suggestions

Identified Usability Issues

• In total 54 usability issues were found, of which 40 were my findings. Of all those 22 were critical or huge. The biggest problems were related to
• search fields and search functionalities
• navigation
• property selection on the search form.

Recommendations

Presented here on a general level.

Search

• Prevent/minimize errors by accounting for synonyms, typos, plurals, etc.
• Help the user recover from errors.
• Provide hints for search terms.
• Offer further options to the user if no results are found.
• Organize search results logically or provide the user with management options (e.g., filters).

Property Search Form

• Display individual property details in a way that the user doesn’t need to navigate from the search form to the main site to view them.

Navigation

• Reduce the number of clicks.
• Minimize unnecessary work related to opening and closing menus.
• Provide alternative navigation methods (e.g., direct access to property details from the map, which reduces unnecessary memory load and avoids extra work).

User Testing

Participants' backgrounds and satisfaction with the service, as well as UX, were examined using questionnaires and a semi-structured thematic interview.

• 1 pilot test + 4 main tests performed remotely, recorded, and transcribed
• Predefined tasks (12 pcs + practice and warm-up tasks)
  • Tasks guided the user's actions to the parts of the service being evaluated
  • Users were asked to think aloud
• A video log was created for the most significant issues
• Questionnaires

Questionnaires

• Consent form
• Background information form
• User satisfaction form

Interview themes

• First impressions
• Navigation and information search
• Completing the application form
• Issues arising during the test
• Participation in the usability test
• Other relevant topics

Findings from the User Testing

Positive Findings

• Learning to use it is easy
• Layout is clear
• Filtering by area and housing type is simple
• Application process is straightforward and intuitive

Issues Found

• Visibility and functionality of the favorites list
• Limitations in search features
• Selection of properties on the application form
• Findability and functionality of the property map
• More detailed filtering options for properties

Recommendation Based on the User Testing

Internal Links & Favorites List

• Providing access from property details or the favorites list directly to the application form, and from the map directly to property details, would streamline navigation between pages faster and easier.
  • This would reduce cognitive load for the user and avoid dead ends.
• The favorites list should also be relocated to a prominent position in the site’s header.

Housing Search Criteria

• Applicants would find the most suitable housing if they were offered better options to filter and refine their search and influence their choices.
• Currently, the housing application doen’t sufficiently address special needs.
• A form with more detailed search criteria would align with TOAS's strategic goal of "Understanding the diverse housing needs of students."
• This would also prevent situations where applicants are offered housing that doesn’t meet their needs, avoiding the need for them to rejoin the waiting list.

Internal Site Search

• The search should support synonyms and typos and provide users with alternative options if no results are found.

Read More About the Project

A detailed report of the project and the results is provided as as PDF inside this repository.