Usability Testing of RMA

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Usability Testing ofRMAs Website

• What Weve Learned So Far

Janet StevensRMA Website Project
Manager Janet_Stevens_at_wdc.usda.gov202-690-3040
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What Is Usability?

• The measure of the quality of a user's experience
  when interacting with a product or system, such
  as a web site, a software application, mobile
  technology, or any user-operated device.

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Why Usability Testing?

• Research by User Interface Engineering, Inc.,
  shows that people cannot find the information
  they seek on Web sites about 60 of the time.
• Industry expert Jakob Nielsen measured traffic at
  42 major sites where usability had been
  emphasized at the design stage and found that
  they performed 135 percent better on average.
• Industry content expert Gerry McGovern stated
  that 90 of users went to only 1 of the
  Microsoft site

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Why Now?

• Site statistics showed that the rapid annual
  growth following our first website redesign in
  October 1999 had slowed, from a rate of 46 for
  hits and 43 for visitors from 2000-01 to 16 for
  hits and 15 for visitors from 2001-02.
• Although staying at near-record levels of 3.4
  million hits and nearly 80,000 visitors per
  month, site usage had slowed. We decided to
  transition the site to a portal to accommodate
  our diverse audiences.
• To transition to a portal in the next 12-18
  months under the eGov initiative, we would need
  audience analysis and usability/accessibility
  testing.

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Why Contract Out?

• Complying with Section 508 accessibility
  requirements for the web site would use up
  existing web team resources
• No resources to help developers ensure Section
  508 compliance of existing online applications
• No team experience with/education on web
  usability testing
• No current data available on our audiences only
  anecdotal or feedback-related info

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Our Goals

• Learn about our 3 major audiences
• Producers, especially limited-resource, minority,
  and specialty crop
• Commodity insurance agents who sell to and manage
  policies/claims for producers
• RMA and FSA employees, especially in the field
  offices, who producers rely on extensively for
  program information and education

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Our Goals

• Have an independent review of the
  accessibility/usability of our online
  applications
• Have the user interface of our top two online
  applications completely redesigned
• Get usability/accessibility training and
  documentation for the web team and developers

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What We Learned About Our Core Audiences

• Producers
• Do not regularly go to Web sites to get
  information however, some want to conduct
  business with the government online in the future
• Who use the Internet tend to be younger, more
  technology savvy, more highly educated, and
  operators of larger farms
• In many operations task a spouse or child to
  gather relevant ag information and news for the
  enterprise
• Look for specific information a quotation, a
  premium estimate, or a county production average

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What We Learned About Our Core Audiences

• Producers
• Connect at lower bandwidths, do not scroll, and
  are very impatient with slow downloads on modems
• Want to see lessons learned and best practices
• Are very interested in seeing what other
  producers are doing, whether in commodity
  insurance, planting techniques, or farm
  management case studies
• Like finding hints, tips, and suggestions for
  improving their practice
• Want to use the Internet in the future for online
  trainings, rather than attending local events

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What We Learned About Our Core Audiences

• Commodity Insurance Agents
• Connect frequently at higher bandwidths
• Tend to have our site as their home page
• Are familiar with agency/insurance terms, but
  there were some terms used that even they did not
  know
• Monitor our site for the latest agency news
• Use our daily ag weather information, but rely on
  producers and local contacts for local weather
  news

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What We Learned About Our Core Audiences

• Commodity Insurance Agents
• Visit Tools and Calculators extensively and most
  used either the Summary of Business or the
  Premium Calculator every week or several times a
  week
• Tended to use the proprietary version provided by
  the insurance company, not the RMA online version

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What We Learned About Our Core Audiences

• RMA/FSA Employees
• Use the information on our intranet unless they
  can only find it on the public site
• Look at information on a larger scale, such as
  yearly trends, overall participation rates, or
  acres enrolled
• Have direct contact with producers and are often
  help them use the site
• Need to find a specific answer to a query in a
  short period of time. They feel confident that
  the answer is somewhere in a known area of the
  site, but they cant always find it quickly and
  have learned who to ask in the office who can
  point them in the right direction

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Putting It All Together

• We need to make our applications and front door
  more usable for our audiences by
• Improving the terms and organization of our nav
  bar
• Segregate information based on audience type
  often their needs are too diverse
• Improve our online glossary
• Add producer case studies to teach others about
  best practices