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Usability of NSB ticketing machines Research Proposal
Heidi Jacobsen Rognerud Irena Kirilova Daskalova Leif Arne Storset Praveena Moganadas
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Contents
1 Description of domain ...................................................................................................................3
1.1 The ticketing machines ............................................................................................................3
1.2 Motivation..............................................................................................................................3
2 Review of key literature .................................................................................................................4
2.1 Usability .................................................................................................................................4
2.2 Vending machines ...................................................................................................................6
2.3 Touch screens ..........................................................................................................................7
3 Statement of purpose ....................................................................................................................7
4 Research questions .......................................................................................................................7
5 Methodology ................................................................................................................................8
6 Research design and methods .......................................................................................................8
6.1 Interviews ...............................................................................................................................8
6.2 Observation .............................................................................................................................9
6.3 Participant observation ......................................................................................................... 10
7 Ethical considerations .................................................................................................................. 11
8 Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 11
References ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Appendix A – Implementation scope ................................................................................................. 14
Appendix B – Empirical material........................................................................................................ 15
Heidi's analytic memo ................................................................................................................... 15
Veena's analytic memo ................................................................................................................. 16
Leif's analytic memo ..................................................................................................................... 17
Irena’s Analytic memo .................................................................................................................. 20
Veena's interviews with NSB ticket sellers ..................................................................................... 22
Appendix C – Meeting log ................................................................................................................. 24
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1 Description of domain
1.1 The ticketing machines
The domain of our research is the ticketing machines for the railway in Oslo. As for any type of ticketing machines, it is interesting to investigate the usability of these machines1. We define "usability" as the degree of agreement between the system and the user‟s conceptualization. The ticketing machines used at the railway in Oslo are quite new and have touch screens. It is possible to pay by card or coins. When buying a single ticket the destination station is entered. The station you are currently located at is automatically set as the departure station. When entering a name of a station the letters that are not possible to use in the name are grayed out. It is also possible to buy tickets on the internet or telephone and pick them up at the machines. This is done by entering a reference number and the tickets are printed.
1.2 Motivation
The computers in our modern culture are everywhere – like in the alarm clock, mobile phone or in the vending machine. Usability evaluation of all computer devices is a tempting area not only for professionals but also for the common people that actually are using the devices in their everyday lives. On the World Wide Web there are many sites, forums and blogs about usability (of devices that the people use in their every day live like vending and ticketing machines, mobile phones and others) created by non-professionals, showing that there is much public interest in usability. When people find mistakes in system design, some enthusiastically share their findings and hope to contribute to improving the quality of the next generation of the product. The motivation for this research is prompted by our will to contribute for the future improvements of the ticket machines.
Research is limited regarding how users find NSB vending machines. A search turned up no research on whether the users find them difficult to use, whether they understand them or what they actually think about them.
1 One source (gumballs.com) explained that vending machines have a long history: “The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria is the first known inventor of a vending machine when, in 215 BC, he invented a machine that dispensed holy water in Egyptian temples. The first commercial coin-operated vending machines were introduced in London in the early 1880s. They dispensed post cards.
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These ticket vending machines are for those who use the train to travel. In Oslo Central Station there are over 150 000 people that use the train daily. Most travelers pass a vending machine, but we wonder how many of them have used it to buy ticket. Why are some of them still buying their tickets from ticket salespeople in the station? Is it because they find the ticket vending machine difficult to use? Or do they just prefer to buy from a salesperson instead?
2 Review of key literature
2.1 Usability In Preece et al. (2002) the authors define evaluation as "the process of systematically collecting data that informs us about what it is like for a particular user or group of users to use a product for a particular task in a certain type of environment." In our research, use of a ticketing machine is the product, and the users can be regular people. The goal of our evaluation is to know the usability of people using ticketing machine to buy ticket for adults, children, dogs and bicycles. "Usability is generally regarded as ensuring that interactive products are easy to learn, effective to use [...] from the user's perspective." (ibid.) Usability of a ticketing machine will be satisfactory if it takes less time to accomplish the particular task, such as buying the ticket, than doing it with a human, and it is easy to learn and most users of the machine are satisfied. "More specifically, usability is broken down into the following goals:
 effective go use (effectiveness)
 efficient to use (efficiency)
 safe to use (safety)
 have good utility (utility)
 easy to learn (learnability)
 easy to remember how to use (memorability)" (ibid.)
In our research we intend to explore all the usability goals mentioned above, as follows:
 Effectiveness: Is the system capable of allowing people to buy tickets?
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 Efficiency: Is the ticket machine at NSB more efficient and productive in comparison with buying tickets on hand?
 Safety: Is the system safety enough regarding the personal information that the users enter in the process of interaction? Are there any dangerous and undesirable situations caused during or after the interaction with the system?
 Utility: "Does the system provide an appropriate set of functions that enable users to carry out all their tasks in the way they want to do them?" (ibid.)
 Learnability: "How easy is it and how long does it take to get started using a system to perform core tasks...?" (ibid.)
 Memorability: "What kinds of interface support have been provided to help users remember how to carry out tasks...?" (ibid.)
Usability includes considerations such as:
 Who are the users?
 What do they know?
 What can they learn?
 What do they want or need?
 What is the general background of the users?
Answering these questions may help us understand more about the users of the ticketing machine. Find out about the usability of the ticketing machine is important for our research, especially to understand the interaction between users and the machine. Our research might give us data about difficulties facing users of ticketing machines and ideas of how this can be corrected one day.
There are generally three types of usability evaluation methods: Testing, Inspection, and Inquiry. In the usability inquiry, usability evaluators obtain information about users' likes, dislikes, needs, and understanding of the system by talking to them, observing them using the system in real work (not for the purpose of usability testing), or letting them answer questions verbally or in written form. We will conduct usability inquiry. Inquiry methods that we will use are Field Observation and Interview. These methods can be used in the test and deployment stages of the development of the product. The usability issues that the methods cover are effectiveness and satisfaction, but not efficiency. In the Interview technique, we will formulate questions about the product based on the kind of issues of interest. Then we will
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interview users to ask them these questions in order to gather information desired. It is good at obtaining detailed information as well as information that can only be obtained from the interactive process between the interviewer and the user. In the Field observation technique we will observe the user to understand how they are using the system to accomplish their tasks and what kind of mental model the users have about the system.
2.2 Vending machines
In illustrating the difficulties of using ticketing machines, Preece et al. (2002) ask the questions: ”... how often have you (or person in front of you) struggled to work out how to purchase a ticket and made a mistake? How many instructions have to be given? What order are they given in? Is it logical or arbitrary? Could the interaction have been designed any differently to make it more obvious to people how to issue instructions to the machine to get the desired train ticket?” Our research we will look at these questions and try to give answers to them. Preece et al. (2002) go on to state that the vending machines are designed to be instructed and in this connection they point that “Much research has been carried out on how to optimize command-based and other instructing-giving systems with respect to usability goals. The form of the commands (e.g., the use of abbreviations, full names, icons, and/or labels) their syntax (how best to combine different commands), and their organization (e.g., how to structure options in different menus) are examples of some of the main areas that have been investigated (Shneiderman, 1998).” (ibid.) The authors find that "the question about which is the best way to design the ordering and sequencing of button pressing for vending machines is not deeply researched." Preece et al. (2002) say that the person knowledge of one type ticketing machine is not useful for other types, i. e. there are not standards for the designers and producers of the ticket vending machines over the world. From our search of the literature on evaluating usability of ticket machines we have found only two articles:
 Connell, Iain. 1998. Error analysis of ticket vending machines: comparing analytic and empirical data. Ergonomics. 41(7):927-961.
 Connell, Iain, Ann Blandford and Thomas Green. 2004. CASSM and cognitive walkthrough: usability issues with ticket vending machines.
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We have found that there is not much research regarding usability of ticket machines, but we hope that our research will contribute to the field.
2.3 Touch screens
The ticket machine that we will look at in our study has a touch screen. A touch screen is a display which can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. It refers to touch or contact to the display of the device by a finger or hand. As stated by Albinsson and Zhai (2003) touch screens are the most “direct” form of HCI (Human Computer Interaction). This is because the information display and control are one. “The zero displacement between input and output, control and feedback, hand action and eye gaze, makes touch screens very intuitive to use, particularly for novice users” (ibid.). This has made touch screens popular to use on public machines, such as ticketing machines. Further, Albinsson and Zhai mention additional benefits of touch screens. Because the control keys are located on the screen, no extra input control device is needed. This way, more space can be used for the screen. Though the touch screen has several benefits, there are also some limitations. First, since the user has to use his/her hand to touch the screen, their hand and arm might obscure the screen. Second, using the hand as a pointing device might make it difficult to point at small objects.
3 Statement of purpose
The purpose of this study will be to study the usability of the ticketing machines at railway stations in Oslo. We will determine if there are issues with the design of the machines that cause customers to waste time or become irritated, or have other adverse effects on their travel experience.
4 Research questions
 What are the difficulties and problems surrounding a user – system interaction process?
 How do the people find the graphical layout? Is it intuitive?
 How are people actually using the machines?
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5 Methodology
We would like to perform a case study on NSB vending machines and their users. In qualitative research, the case study is used when the researcher believes there is something in a case that is worthy of study. In our case it is the ticket vending machines that can be found in NSB train stations. Our goal is to find out how the travelers think about the ticket vending machine, and if it is user-friendly or not. The purpose of a case study is to provide a more specific analysis of a situation or ‟case‟ which might reveal interesting information about it. Observation and interview are common ways of getting data, besides audio-visual material and documents such as reports. In a case study it is important to draw the boundaries of the case. Our boundaries are that we are only studying NSB ticketing machines, not all ticketing machines, and only their use in Oslo. "Case studies focus on activities, functionings and local meaning within specific case(s) – a case should be defined in terms of it being a specific, unique, bound system. (Denzin, 2005) Our study does also have some characteristics of an ethnographic study, such as participant observation and interviewing. However, because we are carrying with us the assumption that there are problems with the machines (since we are studying the usability) into the study, it is not an ethnographic study. In ethnographic studies it is important to not have any assumptions or predefined definitions.
6 Research design and methods
6.1 Interviews
At the train station Oslo S there are ticket salespeople from NSB that are selling tickets over the counter and guiding users when they attempt to buy tickets from the vending machines. We believe it will be valuable to get their view of the travelers' use of the vending machines and will therefore interview them to get an understanding of their view of possible problems with the ticketing machines. Since they talk a lot to the travelers they will probably already have an opinion about how the travelers perceive the machines.
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We want to ask the salespeople whether they experience that the travelers prefer to buy tickets from them rather than from the vending machines. If the travelers prefer to buy from the salespeople it might indicate that the machines are difficult to use. If the people using machines and the people asking salespeople are more or less evenly split, it would be interesting to know which kind of people are using the machines and which prefer to buy from the salespeople. We also wanted to know what they think the main problems with the machines are. The interviews with the salespeople will be carried out on telephone or face to face. During the interview we will take notes of the salespeople's answers to our questions. Interviews of the travelers will be an important part of our research. We will carry out interviews with people that are using or have used the ticketing machines to get an understanding of their experiences. The interviews will be carried out “in the field” and will therefore be quite short. We will mainly interview people that we observe to have problems with the machines. The questions we will ask them are:
1. Do you have problems using the machines?
2. Have you used the machines before?
3. Is it easy to buy a ticket from the machine?
Because the interviews will be short, we do not find it necessary to record the interviews. It will be sufficient to take notes during each interview. Since we will always do observation and interviews in pairs or groups, one can ask questions and the other can take notes. We hope that the interviews will help us find difficulties surrounding the user-system interaction process and how people experience the interaction design.
6.2 Observation
We will carry out observations in Oslo in places where the ticketing machines are located, for instance Oslo S and Nationaltheateret. We will choose places where there are a lot of people. To cover possible variations in users, we will observe at different times of day and on different days of the week. We will aim at observing for one hour at a time. Since there are a lot of machines located at Oslo S and Nationaltheateret we will do the observation in pairs or
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groups. This will allows us to pay attention to more than one machine at the time and it will make it possible to catch more details than if we were observing individually. When we are observing we will look at how the user uses the ticketing machine. How long does it take to find the information and functionality he or she is looking for? During the observation we will take notes of how the users use the machines. It could be possible to video record the users, but this might be perceived as intrusive and make the users pick other machines than those we are observing. We therefore think it would be preferable to take notes of the observation. The observation will hopefully show any difficulties and problems surrounding the user-system interaction process are and how people find the interaction design. We hope to observe how people actually are using the machines, as opposed to how they say they are using them.
6.3 Participant observation
According to Preece et. al. (2002) there are two types of observation in "field (i.e., natural) environment" depending on the research method. If the observer is outsider, in the field study, then the type of observation is "passive observation"; if the observer is insider (e. g. in ethnography) then the type of observation is called "participant observation" (ibid.). We will carry out participant observation. "In participant observation evaluators participate with users in order to learn what they do and how and why they do it. A fully participant observer observes from the inside as a member of the group, which means she must not only be present to share experience, but also learn the social conventions of the group, including beliefs and protocols, dress codes, communication conventions, use of language, and non-verbal communication." (ibid.). We will use participant observation to get a better understanding of how the machines work and their usability. We will use the machines to buy tickets for our own travels. This will give us an understanding of how the machines work and it will make it easier for us to understand the travelers when they tell us about their experiences.
Another way of doing participant observation is to offer to help the travelers when we observe that they are having problems with the machines. This will hopefully make the travelers
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explain to us what their problems are, what they expected to happen and what actually happened. By participating in the traveler‟s problems we will get a good understanding/impression of the usability of the machines.
7 Ethical considerations
Since we are carrying out interviews we need to consider the anonymity of the subjects. Therefore we will not ask for the name of the subjects. We must be conscious and careful when representing, quoting and interpreting the subjects' opinions. Some people may be observed to have trouble using the ticket machine, but will deny that they do not understand how to use it. In such cases, we should not press them to identify problems. Other people may not want to participate in our study, and we should not press them to participate. Also we should be careful about false opinions: there could be some people that would, for any reason, present incorrect data. If it is clear that what they say is manifestly not true, we do not let their opinions influence our conclusions about usability. For instance, if a user claims that the machine was unproblematic to use, but gave up halfway, we would discount the user's opinion for usability analysis but make note of it in our research evaluation.
8 Analysis
Analysis is the process of breaking something down into smaller parts to gain new understanding. In our analysis, we will classify usability observations into the categories from Preece (2002) - that is, effectiveness, efficiency, safety, utility, learnability, memorability. This will help us answer our first research question of what the difficulties and problems surrounding a user-system interaction process are. If the machines are not capable of allowing people to buy tickets, there will be an issue with the effectiveness of the machines.
As for efficiency, it should be more efficient to buy tickets from the vending machines than from sales staff. To decide on this we will use material from the interviews with the staff at
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NSB. They will probably have information about the amount of people buying tickets from them rather than from the machines (because they find this more efficient). To find whether the safety goal is accomplished we will interview the users. If they have experienced any dangerous or undesirable situations in interaction with the machines, this will probably be revealed when we are asking for their experiences. To decide whether the system is safe enough regarding personal information, we will have to study the system itself and the handling of information. However, this is outside the range of our study. The goal of utility is concerned with the fact that the machine should provide the functions that is needed for the users to carry out their tasks in the way the users want. This means that if the machines are not able to let the travelers buy tickets and pick up pre-paid tickets in the way that the travelers want, this goal is not achieved. Information about this will probably emerge when we interview the travelers. The next topic, learnability, is about how easy it is to get started using the system. We will ask the travelers if they have used the machines before, and their answer to this will be valuable to us when deciding if the system has fulfilled the goal of learnability. To be able to say whether the system has achieved the goal of memorability, i.e. if it is easy to remember how to carry out tasks, we will use material from the interviews and our own use of the machines. We will take special note of touch screens and see if they correspond to advantages and disadvantages summarized in Albinsson and Zhai (2003).
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References
 Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (eds.) 2005: The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage Publications
 Connell, Iain. 1998. Error analysis of ticket vending machines: comparing analytic and empirical data. Ergonomics. 41(7):927-961.
 Connell, Iain, Ann Blandford and Thomas Green. 2004. CASSM and cognitive walkthrough: usability issues with ticket vending machines. Behaviour & Information Technology. 23(5):307-320. <>. Accessed 12 October 2008.
 Gray, Wayne D. and Marilyn C. Salzman. 1998. Damaged Merchandise? A Review of Experiments That Compare Usability Evaluation Methods. Human-Computer Interaction. 13(3):203-261. <>. Accessed 12 October 2008.
 Albinsson, Pär-Anders and Zhai, Shumin. 2003. High Precision Touch Screen Interaction. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, Ft. Lauerdale; Florida, USA.
 Preece J., Rogers Y., Sharp H. 2002. Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction
 Gumballs.com. History of Vending Machines and Chewing Gum. . Accessed 3 November 2008.
 Hughes, J., King, V., Rodden, T., Andersen, H. 1994. Moving out from the control room: ethnography in system design. Centre for Research in CSCW Research report, CSCW/9/1994. Lancaster University, UK.
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Appendix A – Implementation scope
We will implement only a portion of our study, since time in this class is limited. We have chosen to implement the following: Observation We aim to do two hours of observation each. We will take field notes for later analysis Interviews Our target is two to three interviews with passengers each. We will take written notes. Additionally, we will interview two of the sales/assistant staff. Writeup We will present the results from our observation and interviews.
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Appendix B – Empirical material
Figur 1 NSB Ticket machine
Heidi's analytic memo
Observation summary When observing in the middle of the day, it seemed like younger people have less problems with the machines than elderly people. It was usually elderly people that had to be helped by the service staff from NSB. This is probably because younger people are more used to using vending machines. It is possible to pay by card or coins when buying a ticket. During our observation the amount of people paying by card was approximately the same as people paying with coins. Several of the people we observed looked up at the big board with departure times when they were buying tickets. They are probably looking for the name of their destination, or the time for the departure (if the ticket is not to be used immediately you have to enter the time of departure). It seems like people generally are not afraid to ask the service staff. I assumed that if people experienced problems with the machines they would rather go to a salesperson than asking for help with the machines.
Most of the travelers buy a one-way ticket, only one picked up a ticket using a reference number.
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One man was confused because he did not find the station he was looking for. He wanted to go to Oslo Lufthavn Gardermoen, and started typing G A, but then he was not able to press the R-button because there are no stations beginning with G A R. He thought there was something wrong with the machine, but actually he just did not know the correct name of the station. When we did the observation in the evening more people were in a hurry and did not have time to answer our questions. Less people got help from the staff. This might be because there were less staff there to help or because people traveling in the evening have more experience with the machines. Ideas for improvement:
 Have several names for the same station
 Make it possible to zoom in on the text
 Better brightness and contrasts on the screens
Veena's analytic memo
On Thursday 11th of October we did on an observation in Oslo Sentralstation. We decided to visit this place after 18:00 to get a picture of the travelers who finds their self in the train station later at night and their use of vending machine. The place wasn‟t so crowded as usual, and people were in a hurry to take the train. Not many people were buying their ticket from NSB staff. Most travelers bought the ticket from vending machine; they were both young and old people. An old couple used more time on the vending machine than the rest, the script on the screen wasn‟t easy to read for them. I can understand their difficulty, the script was little for them. I was impressed by the way they were willing to use time and understand the use of vending machine instead of buying it from NSB staffs. One other lady we talked to meant that the vending machine was really easy to use. After buying ticket from the vending machine couple of times, travelers get used to it. She meant that people needed some training using the machine and they will find it useful and easy to use.
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After 20 min we found out that it was kind of hard getting contact with people to know their opinion about the vending machine, because most of the travelers was in a rush. That‟s the reason we ended the observation after 30 min. Recommendations for improvements are:
 Script on the screen which can zoom in and out for helping people with long or short sight.
 A video with introduction for using the machine on big screen on the station might show the travelers how easy it actually is.
 More NSB staffs to help people use the vending machine and less to buy the tickets from.
 It could also be easy for users if they read the introduction on the vending machine properly.
My impression of the vending machine: It has good usability and more people have started to use it. Users have understood how easy it is to use it, but it can be done some changed to vending machine to make it more useful. My goal of the observation was to understand more about the human - vending machine interaction. And I had an idea that people mostly went to NSB staffs then using the vending machine for tickets. I got another view after the observation, I found out that more and more people have started to use the vending machine, and NSB staffs didn‟t have much do the observation day. In another word the ticketing machine must be understandable and easy for users.
Leif's analytic memo
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Observation summary We stood around NSB's ticketing machines for an hour, observing users ordering tickets. When problems arose, we conducted a brief interview.
 Entering the phone number used when ordering the ticket was often a challenge.
o The customer had forgotten the phone number.
o The customer entered NSB's toll-free number, not his own number.
o The customer did not understand he had to switch fields, and entered both the reference number and the phone number in a single field.
 Prompts were occasionally problematic.
o The button for "prepaid ticket" was overlooked amid all the other options.
o There were no directions for use, causing some travelers confusion.
o However, the defaults seemed to usually be helpful. Many simply continued without having to enter their own data.
 Travelers very often had to consult the overhead timetable in order to select their desired ticket.
 People help each other out, even though NSB staff are standing by. The young help the old, the experienced travelers help the less experienced.
 Very many travelers' credit cards were not accepted.
 User entered 'GARDERMOEN', but could not find the airport station, whose name is 'OSLO LUFTHAVN GARDERMOEN' (even in English).
Ideas for improvements
 Make prompts more verbose. For instance, instead of "Preordered ticket", "Have you already bought a ticket?"
 Position buttons together so that it is obvious that there is a choice between them.
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 Give stations multiple names (such as "Oslo Airport Gardermoen"/"Airport"/"Gardermoen"), and translate names such as "Oslo Airport" that contain common nouns.
Themes
 Cards not accepted
 Prompts may be misunderstood, overlooked, or insufficient
Anamolies None. Observed turns of phrase or vivid metaphors None. My own metaphors Before I commenced the field work I used a metaphor of a formal conversation between man and machine, much like a conversation between a customer and a bored postal worker. This metaphor has been nuanced by the dysfunctions we discovered in the observed human-computer interaction. My metaphor now has the customer and postal worker doing stuff like
 talking past each other
 listing way too many options for action
 not listening to all the provided options
 being very inflexible in what replies are accepted
 using other people to help understand the conversation
Many systems have benefited by being modeled more closely on human conversation - with fewer options, more branching and more focus on intent. Overall impression The machines are quite handy, but even the initial observation session uncovered a myriad of usability problems. A significant number of travelers had problems and left or contacted staff. What I learned from the experience
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 Notes should be more detailed, like Heidi's. This way a percentage of travelers with problems could have been estimated.
 Type out the analytic memo ASAP, while it's fresh in your mind!
Irena’s Analytic memo
Description of the setting: Our group made one hour observation of the clients buying tickets from NSB vending machines at Jernbanetorget. The observation started at 11 a.m and finished at 12.00. The day was 27 October 2008, Monday. There are 14 ticketing machines – 6 on the left and 6 on the right side of the big hall where is situated the time-table panel, one on the left and one on the right side under the time-table panel. Only 6 of the machines that are situated on the right side of the time-table panel were assisted by personnel that help the clients to buy tickets. Generated questions: In this connection some questions arise: Why the staff assists only the 6 of the machines? What about the clients which have troubles using the other machines? Do the travelers know that they could be offer help for buying tickets from the ticket machine? These are questions that might be asked in future field work for this research, if needed. The procedure of the field work: After observing a particular client in the process of using the ticket machine we usually made informal, anonymous, open ended interview with him with about 1 or 2 minute duration. Specific questions aroused for every user when observing his particular approach and eventually troubles to the machine. But the typical questions we asked were: 1. Is it easy to buy tickets from the machine? 2. Have you used this machine before? 3. Do you have problems using the machine, and what kind? Analysis of the answers:
· I have noticed that the persons that have used the machines before usually answer that it is easy to buy tickets. Some of them just leave the interview after the positive answer of the first question. It could indicate that they do not have anything to
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share about their experience with the machine, because they really have not troubles of using it or they are in a hurry and it is the easiest way of getting out from the interview, or they just do not want to participate in our research for different reasons. For example, when I asked a person that assists the machines, he does not want to share information about his experience. It seems that he was afraid to share any data in connection with his job. He recommends us to talk to his manager first. But another person from the staff behaved differently from his colleague – he shared with willingness his experience. He said that the travelers usually have problems to use the machines but the staffs help them. I asked him which the most common problem is. He replied that it is different; the people just can not use the machine, because some of them have never use it before and it takes time to learn how to use it, but the staff safe travelers‟ time when assisting. · We interviewed 7 people, but I will place only the most interesting results here, which are not described in my colleagues notes: i) A couple wants to buy two same tickets with one order. They could not find this option on the machine but they got help from the personnel. It is their first time using this type of ticketing machine and they think that is easy to use it. They share that they have noticed that the elderly people have problems reading the script on the screen. We did not find an option for "zoom in" the script. Findings: Recommendation for improvement: Design options for increasing/decreasing the script! ii) From the interview with a young about 30 years old man we have understood that he does not have problems when using the ticket machine, because he has used to use it. According to him it takes about 2-3 minutes initially to get to know using the machine. He shared that he noticed that the people have troubles using the machines. From his own experience using the ticket machines he shared that he have cut his hand once in his attempt to get the ticket from the slot down where it should be taken after ordering and paying. Findings:
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Recommendation for improvement: Very important: One of the usability goals – SAFTY – is not fulfilled. Make all the metal and plastic parts of machine safety, with no sharp edges! Reflection on methods: Combining the both methods – observation and interview is the appropriate methodology for this fieldwork. The conducted interviews with the travelers after observing them give opportunity to ask the most suitable questions for the particular situation or problem and help to collect much relevant data for a problem. The participant observation method helps to generate and explore wide variety of topics in the field because the researcher can get the most detailed picture when participate in the tasks that different users perform.
Veena's interviews with NSB ticket sellers
Our group wanted to find out more about the usability of the ticket system. One of the members from our group knows two employees from NSB. One of them have worked in NSB over 1 year, other one over 6 months, and their daily work is to sell tickets and helps people to use the ticket machine. We talked to them trough the phone to get their view and meaning about travelers and their use of ticket system. They say that most of the travelers buys tickets from the sellers, not from the machine, mostly because they feel that it`s safe and more trustable. They still run into people who don‟t want to use their bankcard on the machine to buy tickets, and who doesn‟t want to use big amount for paying for the ticket, they are afraid they won‟t get the change or the money back. The benefit they get for buying the ticket from vending machine than in the train is that they get it cheaper. If they don‟t have ticket before they enter the train, they have to pay 20 kr extra for it. They think it‟s a pressure on travelers, and they have no other choice than learn to use the ticket automat. NSB ticket sellers run into a lot of people each day who doesn‟t know how the system works. Some of the travelers are unsure of how to use the machine, other asks for help just to make sure they are doing it right.
A common mistakes traveler make can be listed here:
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 They have trouble finding categories, like students or pensioner, instead they buy tickets for adult which cost lot more.
 Most of them doesn‟t read properly the instruction and have problems with just to click „next‟ to complete it.
 They put the card the wrong way in the machine, and ask for help by saying: the machine won‟t accept my card.
 Some of the travelers don‟t know that it‟s possible to use card in the machine so they waste their time standing in the cue/line to buy their tickets.
 Sometimes old people and some young ones don‟t notice that their ticket have already been bought and it has come out of the machine. And they buy their ticket once again, and after noticing they have bought two of the same tickets, they try to refund it.
 Some of them use wrong vending machine to buy their ticket and complain about it later. (NSB have their own vending machine, and flight trains have their own).
 It‟s possible to buy SL ticket in vending machine, if they have bought the wrong ticket, they think it can be refund by NSB. The one way ticket can not be refunded, and most of them don‟t know that.
The ones who use the vending machine the most are tourist, they don‟t want to waste their time by standing in the cue. Most people like to talk and have someone to help them to buy their tickets. One of the NSB ticket seller told a story about that: He asked a old man if he needed help with the vending, the old man replied: I got a lot of time, so I can wait in the cue. After buying his ticket, he came back to the seller and said: Lene is much nicer than the vending machine, don‟t you think so? Both of them say that NSB‟s ticket machines are user-friendly and a quick and easy way to buy ticket for travelers. The best thing about the ticket machine is that it guides you through the process step by step.
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Appendix C – Meeting log
Thursday, 2 October Present Heidi, Irena, Leif Activities Brainstormed about research projects. We wish to pursue research on transit ticketing machines. Irena has heard of a project in the Design group, and will contact them. In the meantime, we have found a relevant paper (Connell et al: CASSM and cognitive walkthroughs: usability issues with ticket vending machines) Possible research questions
 What usability problems can be found with NSB ticketing machines?
 How are people using the machines?
Tasks Heidi Research plan Leif Apply Connell paper to our work; write research proposal. Irena Research questions Next meeting Wednesday, 8 October at 12:00 Wednesday, 8 October Present Irena, Heidi, Leif Activities
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We further discussed the direction of our research and decided to replicate the Connell 2004 study by evaluating the CASSM and CW methods and applying them to NSB in Oslo. We distributed tasks in order to finish for the deadline on October 13th. Tasks Heidi Introduction or Description of domain Irena Review of literature Leif Motivation Next meeting Monday, 13 October at 12:30. Review research proposal before handing in. Monday, 13 October Present Heidi and Leif. Irena was ill. Activities Reviewed and edited research questions and planned the rest of the assignment. Tasks Heidi By Wednesday, 15 October:
 Update Research design to match research questions and methods
 Add to domain description
By Thursday, 16 October, 22:00:
 Review what we have written
Leif By Wednesday, 15 October:
 Add to CW and CASSM
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 Write separate page about what we will implement: 2 hours of observation each, 2-3 interviews each.
By Thursday, 16 October, 22:00:
 Review what we have written
 Hand in
Irena By Wednesday, 15 October:
 Literature review
By Thursday, 16 October, 22:00:
 Review what we have written
Wednesday, 22 October Present Heidi, Irena, Leif Activities Planned field work and rewriting RP. We will reduce scope and omit usability evaluation methods from our project. Tasks Monday, 27 October at 11:00 We will meet at Oslo S to have a "pep talk" and try out one of the machines. Then we will separate and observe as unintrusively as possible. When we observe someone having trouble with the machines, we will approach them and ask them for an interview. The interview will be quite simple: "What were you trying to do?" and "What problems did you face?". We will present ourselves as university students doing a research project. Listen for themes and metaphors used by the interview subjects. After observation, by Wednesday, 29 October We will each write an analytic memo based on our field notes. Leif Leif will improve our RP according to Maja's suggestions:
 Restructure so that we begin with the general and zero in on the specifics.
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 Tentatively choose the field interaction design.
Monday, 27 October Present Heidi, Irena, Leif Activities
 Video of Leif buying a ticket
 Asked staff's permission to do research
 Observed passengers using the machines
 Interviewed selected passengers having problems
 Discussed research proposal
Results We have two pages of notes from 45 minutes of observation and about 20 interviews. We interviewed staff as well as passengers. Since we have narrowed our scope and omitted usability evaluation methods, we we will have to replace the existing literature review of UEMs with a review of ethnographic usability studies. Tasks Each member
 Write an analytic memo of our field notes by Wednesday, 29 October
 Find and summarize at least one relevant article by Monday, 3 November. Write approximately half a page.
Leif
 Restructure paper according to advice from Maja (see above)
Next meetings
 Monday, 3 November at 12, IFI: Discuss literature review before handing in.
 Monday, 10 November at 12, Oslo S: Second part of field work.
Monday, 3 November Present Heidi, Irena, Veena, Leif
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Activities Planned the remainder of the 2nd draft of the research proposal Results Veena has interviewed friends who sell tickets and help people at Oslo S. Tasks Veena Write about motivation and case study Leif Write about methodology. Hand in after 23:00. Heidi Update research design Irena Enter literature review into document Next meeting Monday, 10 November at 12, Oslo S: Second part of field work. Tuesday, 11 November Present Veena and Heidi Activities Did our second observation on Oslo S. Results Since most people were in a hurry and did not have time to answer our questions, we observed for 30 min. and interviewed a few travelers. Monday, 17 November Present
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Irena, Heidi, Leif. Veena called in sick, but kept in touch by phone. Activities We found that we had overlooked something in the assignment on analysis methods. We have to add that. Irena found ISO-20282, which might possibly be useful. The full standard is expensive, but summaries area available online. Tasks By Tuesday:
 Veena will search the course literature for analytic concepts we may use, and write a paragraph or two about them
 Irena will see if there are core theories related to usability we can use in the analysis, and write a paragraph or two about them
 Leif will help them out as possible
 Heidi will modify the proposal as suggested by Maja
On Wednesday morning:
 Leif or Heidi will send Maja the new draft for review.
By Wednesday:
 Write out an analytic memo of your field work and share with the group (e-mail or Google docs)
Meet on Thursday at 15.00 with the following agenda (Veena will come after work):
 Brief planning of presentation work
 Feedback on each others' analytic memos
 Final review of research proposal
By Friday:
 Quick draft of presentation
On Friday at 16.30:
 Review and plan presentation
On Monday:
 Rehearse presentation
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Next meeting Thursday, 20 November at 15:00. Thursdag, 20 November Present Leif, Irena, Veena and Heidi Activities We went through the research proposal and identified areas of improvement. We also discussed our analytic memos. Topics for the presentation were drafted and assigned. Tasks Irena will add to the motivation part and the ethical consideration. Veena will edit the literature review to give it a better flow and relate it more to our study. Heidi will add to the analysis part and Leif will help out. Everyone will make a draft of their part of the presentation.