Honda Website gets Impromptu Test and comes out Poorly

William Hudson of Syntagm asked members of the London Usability mailing list to try the following task, after his own experiences with a website:

DIY USABILITY TEST:
1) Go to http://www.honda.co.uk
2) Note the time
3) Find the CO2 emission figure (important for UK tax purposes) for the Hybrid version of the Honda Civic (correct answer is 109)
4) Jot down the time it took you and your satisfaction with the experience of finding this (0 = not at all, 5 = very)
4) Send them to me mailto:william.hudson@syntagm.co.uk

Hudson received 28 responses with usable data. His analysis yielded that the average amount of time spent on the task was 7.2 minutes (ranging from 2.5 to 20). Only half of respondents found the information at all. Many respondents who failed did not specify a satisfaction with the experience, but this was taken as 0 (not at all satisfied). Mean satisfaction was 0.7 (median 0 = not at all satisfied). Note that not all respondents were usability professionals - for example, one was a Flash instructor, he points out.

He also states that in the usability testing of intranets he is involved with, all of the respondents would have failed the task as only at most 90 seconds is allowed for completing this kind of task.

Hudson says that the correct route to the information on www.honda.co.uk can be found by following these instructions:

1) Click on "cars" at the top of the home page.
2) Wait for the intro to finish (the one with the cards driving around) or press "Skip" when it eventually appears.
3) Click on the image of the Civic.
4) Click on the Civic again (or wait until the new animation finishes).
5) A button appears on the right of the screen labelled "Build your Civic".
6) Click on that and wait for the screen to load.
7) Click on the specification tab.
8) Scroll down the left panel to Fuel Economy. CO2 is the last figure shown.

'I think I would be pretty safe in suggesting that the designers never asked themselves how users would find this information. Given that most of the respondents were pretty determined, I imagine that most users actually just order a brochure or look somewhere else. (I received a couple of notes that a Web search for Honda Civic Hybrid CO2 works very well - it just doesn't find the Honda site.)

'One final point is that the CO2 figure is possibly the main reason that buyers - particularly companies - would be considering this car in the UK. The UK government is giving considerable tax breaks to low-CO2-emission vehicles. They are also one of the few types of vehicle that you can drive into Central London without paying the Congestion Charge - so it is far from an academic exercise,' comments Hudson.

Associated Link: A spreadsheet of the data on the Syntagm site

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