Assignment One: Cineplex Official Website Analysis INF 2170H Fall 2016

Shuiyao Wang Yuchen Jia Ye Zheng Zi’ang Chen

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

1.1 Problem Description

Our team chose the Cineplex official website (www.cineplex.com) as the target website for our re-design project. This website is designed, operated and maintained by Cineplex Odeon Corporation, which is a Canadian entertainment company that operates numerous businesses including a modern and fully digitized motion picture theatre circuits in the world. The website serves as the only officially recognized portal through which users can search for information related to all businesses of the corporation. We would like to mention that the Cineplex website went through some minor content changes during our research process, however, in order to be consistent in our project, we decided to focus on the previous version which was in use until Oct. 15th.

During the initial stage of familiarizing with the website (primarily by clicking through and doing some background research), our team found out some information architecture problems that gave rise to operation obstacles and damage user experience.

Organization System: According to our observation, the major organization problem of the website is information misclassification within the navigation bar and the “find showtime” filter. For example, our team thinks that it is confusing to put “group event” label under “Theater” in the global navigation , because when we first saw the label “Theater”, we naturally considered it as the place for finding theaters, not events held in the theater. (Figure 1)

Figure 1 Global Navigation

Same problem occurred when we tried to refine our research in the search filters area. When we searched for movies by Genre, we surprisingly found that there was a label called “Foreign Language” which certainly is not regarded as a genre on its own. (Figure 2)

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Figure 2 Search filters Navigation System: The navigation system of the website is considered to be well-designed by our team because when we observed and performed certain tasks at the beginning of the project, as the first time users ourselves, we can navigate through the website using the global navigation bar and did not get lost. However, there is a minor flaw we found. The “Return to homepage” logo on the top left corner does not function consistently in all subpages. The Rent/Buy button navigates users to an external website and the “go home” logo does not link back to the home page.

Labeling System: During our exploration of the website, we got confused several times by the name of the labels in the navigation bar, for example, the label “Rent/Buy” and “Corporate Product”. The former one actually direct users to an external website called “Cineplex Store” where users can buy or rent digital copy of movie. However, When we first saw the name “Rent/Buy”, some of us thought it was an entrance for buying movie tickets. Similarly, the “Corporate Product” actually refers to the product Cineplex sell to other companies for rewarding their employees, not simply the products made by Cineplex. Mislabeling caused many misunderstanding during our research and it was an essential part to be analyzed in the card sorting activity.

Search System: A critical problem with the search system is that it does not support keyword research well enough in the search filters. when we entered keywords that indicate the landmark buildings near the theater instead of the precise name of the theater, no hint was shown for indication. For those users who do not know the name of the theater, this will be a serious problem and they have to check for the answer from other sources.

In order to validate our assumption and acquire feedbacks and suggestions from the users, we designed tasks in the following process and the result will be shown in the User Analysis part.

1.2 Justification for the Project

The information architecture problems highlighted above are all critical problems that seriously damage user’s operation experience and obstruct the efficient user of the website, which are bad for both users and

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H stakeholders. It can be especially difficult for first time users to apprehend all functions the website provide and the exploration process is also challenging and time consuming. As Cineplex theaters circuits served approximately 77 million customers annually and this official website is the only online channel for getting corporate information, the website is supposed to be user friendly and highly efficient so that more and more users would choose to use the online service.

2.1 Context Analysis

Cineplex’s business strategy, which is released on the Cineplex website (Cineplex/Corporate Information), addresses that the corporate will “continue to enhance and expand the existing infrastructure and service offerings to attract new customers and increase revenue per guest”. In order to achieve the goal, the Cineplex website as a digital infrastructure and online service portal must improve the user experience and efficiency. Therefore, the overall goal of our team is to gradually improve the overall information architecture of the Cineplex website and promote the user experience after all three projects are completed.

The short-time goal for the first part of the Cineplex website redesign project is to evaluate the website according to the four aspects of visualizing information architecture in order to find out major user experience problems to work on. Then we will invite users to participate in the user research session which consists of two parts (interview and card sorting) to elicit their needs for the current IA structure of the website.

After discussion, our team agreed on the conclusion that the primary tasks for using the website are buying movie tickets and searching for movie-related information. We realized from the background research that the main assets of Cineplex Inc. are the theaters they own and most of their other businesses are complementary services that cover all service lines within a theater. Except for the main tasks, users can also perform secondary tasks such as selecting add-on movie experience (e.g. UltraAVX and IMAX), searching for movie trailers, booking party rooms and finding jobs, etc..

It is also important to identify the intended audience and stakeholders of the Cineplex website. Although this website is intended to serve anyone who has a computer terminal and would like to acquire relevant corporate information (regardless of his/her gender, age and education background), we can define different group of user avatars according to their purpose and frequency of using the website(Figure 3).

Our team set up some premises and scopes for intended audience that is taken into the consideration. The users should live in Canada, understanding either English or French and have access to the Internet. The primary users are people who frequently perform primary tasks, that is, buying tickets and searching for information from Cineplex website. The secondary users can either be those who do perform primary tasks but less frequently or people who perform secondary tasks very frequently. Other people who seldom use the website for any purpose are marked as inactive users who have little economic contribution for the website.

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Figure 3 Define user

The stakeholders of Cineplex website can be divided into two groups: The first group consists of external stakeholders of the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, such as customers (users of the website), suppliers(food suppliers),advertiser(website ads, ad opportunity on the bottom of the page),investors and movie companies who have business relationship with the corporation. While the second group include internal stakeholders such as stockholders, board members and employees of the Corporation.

As internet is gaining prominence nowadays, people (esp. young people) prefer buying movie tickets online instead of in person. According to a recent research, more than 26% of the movie tickets are sold online in Canada (Wired Magazine, 2015) and the figure keeps growing. The existence of the Cineplex website saves the movie viewers from queuing in long line in the theater and provides with another way to buy tickets at flexible time and place. In a past-paced social environment, this website satisfies the need for flexibility which is extremely important for those who are on a tight working schedule. Users can search for screening timetables and all movie-relevant information easily through the website and buy tickets online whenever they want.

The Cineplex website currently applies both top-down and bottom-up information architecture. The top-down structure dominates if users type in keywords such as “Cineplex” or “Cineplex theaters” in the search engine and enter the website from the main page When users are in any of the subpages, they can tell where they are by reading the titles on the top and navigate to other subpages and homepage easily.

2.2 Content Analysis

The technique of content analysis provides a good insight of what are being presented in the existing web pages. This section of the assignment aims to demonstrate selected contents from Cineplex, and furthermore, perform content analysis on the selected pages. These pages are, namely, Corporate

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Products, Theater Technology, Investor Relations and Showtime. These pages are selected for our content analysis because they cover a various types of users of the Cineplex website, such as business development coordinators and movie fans. In speaking of the content gathering method, “Noah’s ark” is deployed, and in addition to “Noah’s Ark”, “ROT” method is also utilized. “ROT” stands for “redundant, outdated, or trivial” and it functions as an indicator that identifies useless, duplicate and expired content on web pages.

Name Format Subject Document Source Architecture R O T

Corporate -Text -Audienc -Marketing -Business -Organization Y Products -Image e-specific Info Develop- -Navigation cheme ment

Theater -Text -Hybrid -Accessibility -Custome -Navigation Y Technology -Image scheme Info r Support -Search -Labeling

Investor -Text -Audienc -Partnership -Business -Navigation N Relations -Image e-specific Info Develop- -Search -PDF scheme -Financial ment -Organization -Chart info (e.g. -Labeling report and stock info) -News

Showtime -Text -Task- -Product page -Sales - Search Y -Image oriented - Labeling scheme - Navigation - Organization Content Inventory

The first web page selected for our content analysis is Corporate Products. In speaking of the format, this web page has image and text. The subject of this page is audience-specific scheme. This is to say that it does not attract all types of audiences. More specifically, since this page is designed for event planners in other corporates, only people in such positions will be interested in looking at this page. The document type of this page is marketing info; and the source of this page is business development. This page contains two types of information architecture element, namely, organization and navigation system. As ROT indicates, this page should be removed or merged with other pages in the future when redesigning the website because there are several pages or URL sharing similar content on Cineplex website. Those pages are Corporate Sales, Corporate Products and bulk certificate purchases.

The second web page to be analyzed in this section is “theater technology”; this page has two types of format, namely, image and text. Although the subject of “theater technology” seems to be the dominant scheme, if you look closely enough, contents in addition to Theater Technologies can be found on that page. Thus, the subject of this web page is hybrid scheme. This page embodies three types of information 6

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H architecture element --search, labelling and navigation system. The document type of this page is accessibility information. The source of this web page is customer support, because it aims to help users understanding Cineplex technologies better. According to the ROT indicator, this web page needs to be merged with the following pages “prime seats, VIP, D-Box, IMAX, UltraAVX, RealD-3D”, due to a very high level of similarity in their contents. Moreover, sections that talk about “state of the art theater” should be removed from “theater technology” page, because they are not relevant to the topic of technology.

The next web page that will be analyzed in this section is “investor relations”; this page contains images, PDF, charts and texts. Since it is specifically designed for business investors, the subject of this web page is audience-specific scheme. The page of “investor relations” has several different types of document, for instances, partnership information, financial report and stock information, and news releases. Financial report demonstrates some key business information, such as market share, corporate strategy, total revenue, box office sales and other business segments of Cineplex Inc. Same as the first web page being analyzed in this section, the source of “investor relations” is also business development. This page embodies all four types of information architecture element- organization, search, labelling and navigation system. As ROT indicates, this web page does not require any modification.

The“ShowTime” page is also chosen to be analyzed in this section of the assignment. This web page has only two types of format, namely, image and text. The subject of this page is task-oriented scheme, because it is designed for users to check movie schedules and purchase tickets online. The document type of this page is product page, and the source of this page is ticket sales. In speaking of the existing information architecture on this page, there are organization, search, labelling and navigation system. This page also needs to be redesigned, because the way it sorts movies does not match the title of this page-ShowTime. This page supposes to sort movies by screening schedules, not the geographic locations of the theaters. In other words, the current page duplicates the content of another web page- “find a theater”. In other words, when redesigning this website, “ShowTime” should be either removed from the Cineplex web page or modified from the current version.

2.3.1 User Description

Four participants between the age of 20-25 were chosen for interview and data collection. We selected this age group intentionally as we believe they represent a large portion of the potential users of the Cineplex website. Students with experience in technology and interest in films are very likely to book movie tickets through the website.

Since people coming from different backgrounds may interact with technology differently, we have decided to select participants from different field of studies. In addition to that, gender variable is also in our consideration Besides, in order to avoid gender bias, two of our participants are female and other two are male.

Our concern, when selecting participants, is their level of familiarity with the website as we would want to collect information from both first time users and frequent users. However, during user selection process, we found it is hard to gather frequent users of the Cineplex website, because most of users who buy their movie tickets online prefer using the APP over the website. People who are not going for movies frequently or are not familiar with Cineplex are more likely to use the website to purchase tickets 7

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H and find information. Hence the majority of Cineplex website users are those who do not use the system often, and many of them could be first time users. Therefore we decided to involve more first time users of the website to participate in our study. At the end, we had two first time users, one sometime-user and one frequent user of the website.

Research Method and Protocol

Purpose: We decided to use interview as our research method because we want to talk to users face to face to understand their frustrations and their suggestions for improvement. Specifically, we conducted semi-structured interviews. We prepared 7 questions to ask participants. All seven questions are open-ended and some of them are very straightforward. We expected to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from participants’ answers to the questions. To get richer interview results, we decided to let users do two tasks before we asked specific interview questions. We hope users can be inspired and reveal some pain points through the tasks and therefore provide more valuable answers. More detailed information about the tasks will be provided in the tasks analysis section.

Process: We provided users with two tasks and asked them to “think out loud” while they are completing the tasks. After the task performance, we conducted interview with them one by one. One interviewer interacted with the participant while another one recording the answers. All seven questions were asked in exactly the same order to avoid any potential bias. For first time users, we gave them 10-15 minutes to familiarize with the website because they may need more time to learn to use the website. For “sometime”/regular users, we started the tasks without giving them any preparation time. In terms of the contextual settings, we selected a study space where there were less people and less distraction so that participants can better focus on the tasks. We also suggested them to bring their own laptop to minimize the possible confusion caused by technology.

Interview questions: When we design the interview questions, considering our users are not familiar with information architecture, we try to avoid using any technical terms. Our questions are as follow: 1. How often do you use this website? 2. What do you usually do with this website? 3. Can you think of one or two content on this website that you find is most valuable and why? 4. Do you think the current website helps you find the information you need? 5. From a scale of 0-10，with 0 is the most unsatisfied and 10 is the most satisfied, how do you rate the current experience with the website？ Explain your answer. 6. According to you previous experience with this website, which kind of information do you think is hardest to find？ Describe what have you done. What will you do when you cannot find the information you need? 7. Can you offer three suggestions to improve the current website and why you think you want to improve these parts?

Question 1 is an introductory question which aims to gain background information from users and allows them to warm up for the following questions. The intention for Question 2 and Question 3 is 8

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to understand what contents or tasks that users find are the most valuable from the current website. This is for the purpose of getting richer information on what features should we keep when we redesign the website.We think users’ normal routine with the website are part of the valuable content for users, but there could be other contents that users think are important, so we also asked directly about their opinions on what they think are most valuable. Putting these two questions together, we were hoping to gain a more comprehensive views about what is valuable to users.

Next, through Question 4 and 5, we hoped to understand users’ satisfaction level with the current website, specifically in terms of information finding. In details, we would want to know the aspects of the current web page that made the users have satisfied or unsatisfied user experience. With Question 6, we dig more into the problematic side of the website, and try to understand which feature frustrated users the most about the current IA. And at the end, with Question 7, we were looking for users’ ideas for improvement

Limitation/challenge: There are some limitations in our study. Since we only chose four participants to conduct interview, the data we collected are limited and we may not gain a very comprehensive view. Another limitation is that we decided to conduct task performance prior to the interview. Most of the interview answers that participants provided are relevant to these two tasks because those are the contents that interviewees can refer to and recall quickly. Thus, the scope of the answers are narrowed and too focused. Interviewees might ignore some of the problems that are not in the tasks.

Interview Summary

After conducting interviews with all of four interviewees, we can notice that first-time users and regular users have distinct feedbacks by summarizing answers for each question. Finding out what and why the differences exist between two types of users provide valued enlightenments on redesign the website.

For Question 1, two out of four interviewees are first-time users, one is a “sometimes” user, and the other one is a regular user. For Question 2, regarding what does participants do with the website, all participants reported that they use website to purchase tickets. In addition, two out of four participants also use the website to gain movie information such as watch trailers and check what movies are showing in theaters. One user mentioned that he used the website to active scene card, which is a entertainment rewards card. One participants also reported that he checked out information about e-sport and corporate sales on the website as he is interested in these area.

For Question 3, our group asked interviewees what they think are the most valuable about the Cineplex website. Three out of four participants answered that filter search bar, which users can filter movies by location, movie title, and dates, are the most valuable feature in Cineplex website. Filter search bar is extremely helpful in saving purchase tickets time when user already knew which movie they want to watch. Regular-user participants who play around the website a lot also like the drop down menu ( “Refind Your Search” button) under the filter search bar including more filter options including genre, rating and experience that allow them to select movies among many options. However, the two new users of the website wasn't able to locate this feature. and so Although participants thought that filter search bar is the most valuable feature of Cineplex website, it needs lots of improvement in order to make it easily to operate by all kind of users. Another valuable feature of the Cineplex website is the map feature on the 9

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Showtime and Theater web page. There is a map indicating the location of that specific theater beside each theater information. However, two out of four users suggested that the map is not well-presented because each map only shows one theater and do not list out other nearby theaters. In short, our participants indicate that the most important function for Cineplex website is to allow them purchase tickets online. The most valuable features that support this function are filter search bar on the homepage and the location map on Showtime and Theater web pages.However, these two features require improvements for better user experience.

For question 4, two first-time user participants reported the website did not help them find the information they needed. When doing the tasks, those two participants felt extremely difficult to complete the task because they could not quite understand the logic of the searching function. In particularly, first-time users reported that the language selection for filtering Chinese movie was not available through genre. When choosing “foreign language” option from genre drop-down menu, users would have to choose a theater location in order to see what foreign language movies are available at this specific location. It should be noticed that foreign language movies include various movies in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian etc. In addition, every theater provides different kind of foreign language movies, which means users are impossible to locate a Chinese movie if they do not select a right theater from the beginning. The Cineplex website assumes users who watch Chinese movies already knew which theater provides such service, and therefore is not quite friendly to the first-time users. Regular and “sometimes” users who had already known how the system worked agreed that the website helps them find the information they need. Moreover, they thought the payment process is relatively easy and straightforward. Users follow the payment instruction step by step, and there is no way they can go wrong with the process.However, regular users also evaluated that searching by language function in Cineplex website is hard to use and they took a long time to figure out how to select a Chinese movie.

In term of the level of satisfaction (Question 5), two first-time user participants gave relatively low ranking such as 2 out of 10 and 5 out of 10. The other two participants who often used the website gave the website higher ranking such as 7 out of 10 and 8 out of 10. When explaining the reasons for giving such low ranking, first-time user participants described that the labeling was confusing. They thought “Rent and Buy” in the global navigation bar was where they can click to purchase tickets. In fact, “Rent and Buy” will direct users to a sub-page where users can download or rent digital movies. They also reported that there were too many information posted on the web which made them feel that finding information was not straightforward and usually took lots of steps to locate the information they needed. Interestingly, regular users explained that giving high ranking was because they thought Cineplex website had lots of content for them to explore and collected information regarding to the new movies. They were satisfied also because they valued the easy payment process when purchasing tickets and thought finding information was relatively quickly.

In terms of question 6 which asking what frustrated users the most in using the website. Participants already provided lots of details and relevant information in previous questions. To summarize the answer, our group listed six main aspects of user frustration. The first one is about location search. All four participants talked about they could not search the location by user-preferred keywords. For example, participants could not search the location by entering landmark such as Eaton Center or by postcode. Also, as most users cannot recall the theatre names, they often do not match the location with the theater name displayed on the webpage. Users often have problems to choose the right theater when purchase tickets and this frustrated them the most. The second major pain point is that the “Now Playing” list on 10

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H homepage and under drop-down menu of filter search bar is incomplete. There are only limited number of movies presented on homepage and under the drop-down menu (See appendix). Participants assumed those movies are the only available choices that are now playing in theaters. The complete list is presented at the “Now Playing” webpage located under the drop-down menu of “Theater” in the global navigation bar. Participants are confused about why the “Now Playing” label that on homepage and under the “Theater” drop-down menu does not represent the same content.

The third frustration point is that users need to go through lots of steps to find the information they need. Most web pages in Cineplex website only present partial information, which is either location information or movie information. Those two sets of information are rarely presented at the same page. For example, participants reported no matter they go through “ showtime” or “theatre” on the global navigation bar, they get exact same information, and they could not find movie information on either pages. Some participants complained that the labels on the web page created confusion and the label directed them to a wrong webpage. Participants have to click one more time to see the movie list for each particular theater, which is inefficient to use. The same problem happens in the “Now Playing” web page. Participants complained that they could not get location information on each movie title and they have to click two more times to find which theater has the movie they want to watch. The fourth major problem that frustrate participants is that there is not option for them to filter movies by country or by language. Although, there is a “foreign language” option in genre drop-down menu, participants do not consider it as a useful filter option. The fifth pain point is that all the movies, include those foreign language movies, have English movie title only. Users need to take lots of time to figure out the foreign language movies’ English title because usually they only know the movie name in its original language. The sixth frustration point needs improvement is that “ Refine your search” button as mentioned before. The search contains important feature, yet it is not visible to the two First-time user participants.

For Question 7, we asks participants to provide three suggestions on how to improve the current website. The participants’ answers can be categorized into three groups. The first group is about movie information display. Participants suggested that to have a short-cut for purchasing ticket below the “Now Playing” section on homepage to save time and be straightforward. Adding this features will help in achieving the business objective of the Cineplex, which is to make money and to sell movie tickets. Also, participants indicated that they wanted to see more movie information displayed the “ now playing” list. They also proposed to add the original name beside foreign language movie, so that they can easily recognize a Chinese movie or Japanese movie at the first sight. Some participants reported that the banner advertisements should not be displayed at the top center of the screen as it distract users a lot. They also proposed to place the “filter search bar” on the top to make it more obvious.

The second group is about refining the filter search function. All participants mentioned to include “user-preferred” keywords in searching location such as by postcode, by landmarks, by region, by city or by country. This will allow users to filter theater in a comfortable way because users are more likely to remember the landmark or vague location rather than precisely entering the theater name. Considering the multiculturalism policy in Canada, participants also thought that adding “language” or “nation” in the filter search bar would be a more user-friendly design for those who wish to watch foreign language movies in Canada.

The third group is about the global navigation bar. Participants wished to add “Now Playing” label beside the “Theater” label instead of putting it as a sub-category under the “Theater”. Most participants did not 11

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H think “Now playing” and “Theater” present the similar content, and therefore should separate them into two independent entities. Some participants brought the idea that to put three main labels which closely linked to the function of purchasing ticket at the top of the web page to serve as short cut. Considering other entities on the global navigation is not moviegoing related, the participant also suggests to group these three labels together and create a new label called “Movie going”, so that it's more straightforward.

When summarizing the interview results, our group tried to figure out what make the first-time users and regular users to have such opposite answers. We hope by answering this question will help us redesign the website in a way that is easy to be used by both first-time and regular users.

2.3.2 Card Sorting

Participant Description

The participants selected for the card sorting activities are all undergraduate and graduate students from University of Toronto with an age between 21-28, as we considered it reasonable to assume that the majority of the Cineplex website users are young adults who are more likely to possess basic knowledge of and easy access to the Internet. We took multiple factors such as gender, age, educational background and familiarity of the website into consideration, and endeavored to eliminate bias as much as possible by balancing the gender, choosing students from various background and incorporating both first time user and users who have previous interaction with the website into the card sorting. We believe that first time users can better reflect organization and labeling problems because they have no previous experience with the website and their minds are not accustomed to the existing information architecture framework compared to regular users. The instinct of the first time user regarding whether the labels are understandable at first sight and information organization appropriate is extremely valuable for finding out IA problems.

Card Overview

In order to be objective and unbiased in this activity, we decided to use the exact same labels listed in the global navigation bar of the Cineplex website. For example, in the drop down menu of the highest level label “Event”, there are secondary level labels “Performing Arts”, “Film Series” and “Music, Sports and More”. Under each secondary labels lie several third level labels (each label can no longer be split into more labels) such as “Stage “ and “Classic Film”. There are 38 such labels in total, besides, in order to clarify the meaning of some labels not written in plain English (Such as UltraAVX and WWE), we wrote down descriptions for each of them. The card content and descriptions are shown in the table below while the raw data (card sorting result) of each participant is attached to the appendix.

Card Name Description

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These screenings are presented in a lights up, sound Sensory Friendly down environment for individuals with autism spectrum disorder

VIP Watch movies in surround sound and stunning picture while enjoy your in-seat dining in comfy chairs

Xscape Play the latest games, enjoy delicious food and hold a party

Timeplay A gaming experience on the screen before movie starts

Prime Seat Enjoy larger seats I a reserved row in selected auditoriums

Popcorn Parties A party for children under 13 years old

Corporate Meeting & Screenings Provide with auditoriums to hold corporate meeting and presentation

Fundraising Resell the tickets for raising funds

Theater Accessibility Policy regarding the provision of Accessible Goods and Services

Theater Technology Latest technology used in Cineplex movie display

Food & Drinks Snacks and drinks offered in your local theater

All Trailers

Interviews Interviews with actors from movies

Featurettes A brief documentary film covering one or more aspects of film making process

Movie Clips Scene selected from a film

On-sets A short film recording what happened on ser, like a movie blog

Rent or Buy

Bolshoi Ballet Offers the opportunity to see world-class ballet performance on the big screen at a local theater

Met Opera Watch opera in HD at your local theater

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Stage Watch the best of stage plays on the screens

In the Gallery Brings you up close to the greatest art exhibitions and galleries across the globe on big screen

Family Favorites Watch a family film each week on Saturday mornings

Digital Film Fest A one-week event featuring Sci-fi, Fantasy and Cult films

eSports Watch and play games on the big screen

Event Screen Special in-theater and on night only events, alternative films, concert and more

Music at the Movies Watch music documentaries, concert and music movies

WWE Watch WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) on the big screen

E-Gift Cards/Standard Gift Card Give friends and family the gift of movies

Corporate Product A B2B commerce between Cineplex and other corporations, it offers corporates a way to reward employees.

Showtime Search Movies by locations, time, genre and ratings

Classic Films Watch classic films on the screen

Find a Theater Find a list of theaters near your current location

Now Playing Find a list of movies currently playing in Cineplex

Coming Soon Find a list of upcoming movies

Resend Online Ticket To resend your purchase confirmation

IMAX/UltraAVX/RealD-3D Movies playing in IMAX/UltraAVX/RealD-3D format Experience and theaters equipped with the technology

D-Box Theaters equipped with D-Box technology & D-box seats warnings

Stars & Strollers A baby friendly environment with lower volume and dimmed lighting

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Execution Overview

In the early stage, one of the most important decisions we have to make was to decide on whether we should use actual cue cards or find a card sorting software on the Internet. After conducting several mindful discussions over the issues related to card sorting, we reached a mutual agreement on using xSort, a MacOs-based card sorting software, to conduct card sorting exercises with nine participants. During one of the group discussions, we also conducted step-by-step instructions of how to perform card sorting with participants to standardize this process. This step was considered essential in speaking of the card sorting technique, because the results of this technique not only vary with each participant, but also with each executor; thus to have pre-approval instructions ensure each executor will follow the same rules and ask the same questions when conducting card sorting with participants.

The first step on the instructions is to collect basic information about participants, for examples, status (international or domestic student), gender identity, age and education level. Then the executor would present the consent form to the participants. The second step on the instructions is to ask participants how would they like their cards to be displayed, this is because that xSort gives users two options when comes to card placement. If users choose the option of “random” placement, all of the cards would be randomly placed on the screen. If the option of “stacked” placement is chosen, users would get a stack of cards at the right corner of the screen. Participants’ preference of card placements should not have direct influence on their results, but this step is indented to make participants feel more comfortable with the card sorting exercise. The third step is to teach participants how to use xSort, and then briefly introduce the rules of how to perform card sorting exercises. Those rules are, for examples, participants need to group cards together based on the similar attributes. The number of groups they can create is not limited, however, they should not group cards recklessly. If they do not understand the meaning of a card or find some cards to be confusing, a description can be found on the back of each card. In some cases, after seeing the card descriptions, if participants still find some labels difficult to understand, they are also welcome to introduce new labels to these cards. Last but not least, if participants experience difficulties with grouping specific cards, they could leave those cards alone as unclassified cards.

The fourth step happens when participants performing card sorting exercises. The executor is required to conduct observation of his or her participants and write down all the comments and questions that participants have. The fifth step is to ask participants to rank their groups based on their own judgements of the significance of groups. The last step on the instructions is to ask participants what are some problems and difficulties when doing card sorting exercises.

Results Analysis and Findings

Since the manual analysis (excel template) is considered highly subjective, we have executed two types of analysis in order to have a better understanding of the overall pattern of user’s mental model. The first analysis examines the final result from a statistical perspective; and the second analysis will try to explain the result from a more qualitative perspective.

Statistical Analysis One of the most important reasons we chose to use xSort, for our card sorting exercises, is it allows us to perform a statistical analysis by using the raw data. So after performing card sorting exercises with nine participants, we got just enough raw data to do a statistical analysis. The first thing we did was to generate 15

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H a distance table by using raw data collected from participants on xSort. Distance tables reveal the similarities (distance) between clusters in numbers, and as the value of distance between two clusters increases, their similarity decreases. For examples, according to our distance table, the distance between “now playing” and “showtime” is 0.2, and the distance between “now playing” and “WWE” is 0.78. This means that “now playing” and “Showtime” are very similar, and “now playing” and “WWE” are very different.

The second thing is to “visualize” the distance table by producing a hierarchical clustering tree. It is worth mentioning there are two types of hierarchical clustering, and the one we used for this assignment is agglomerative clustering. This type of the clustering is a “bottom-up” approach which demonstrates how single clusters were merged together successively from bottom to top. This approach helps us to examine the logic behind the groups that our participants created. In speaking of the clustering methods, the method of average linkage was chosen for this assignment. Among all three methods available on xSort, the average linkage is said to be the most common method when performing hierarchical clustering. Last but not least, we set the correlation range to 0.6, and then there were ten unnamed groups appeared on the screen. After reviewing the group names from the participants’ data, we have made the final decision to use these ten words as the final names of our groups: - Accessibility: Sensory Friendly, Stars & Strollers, Theater Accessibility - Party: Popcorn Parties - Amenity: eSports, XSCAPE, Timeplay, Food & Drinks - Add-on Experience: Prime Seats, VIP, D-Box, Theater Technology, IMAX, UltraAVX, RealD-3D - Services & Products: Fundraising, Resend Online Ticket, Rent or Buy - E-Gift Cards: E-Gift Cards/Standard Gift Card - Marketing: Corporate Meetings & Screenings, Corporate Product - Events: Event Screen, Digital Film Fest, Family Favourites, Met Opera, Boshoi Ballet, WWE, Classic Films, In the gallery, Stage, Music at the Movies - Movie Features: Featurettes, Interviews, Movie Clips, On-sets, All Trailers - Movie: Coming Soon, Now Playing, Showtime, Find a Theater

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

Clustering Tree

Moreover, when we set the correlation range to any number less than the previous one, we will also get sub-groups. For example, with a range of 0.4, “add-on experience” group would be divided into two sub-groups, namely, sub-group one which consists prime seats, VIP, D-Box, IMAX, UltraAVX, RealD-3D and the sub-group two which consists theater technology. Since it is not one of our goals to create sub-groups, this process can be executed in the future when we need to add sub-categories to the web page.

Manual Analysis

In this subsection, we attempt to find the possible rationale of each group, created by xSort, by comparing and contrasting clusters in our results. In the first group “accessibility”, there are three clusters, which are sensory friendly, stars & strollers, and theater accessibility. These three clusters are designed to help customers with special needs, thus they are grouped together. The second group “party” contains only one cluster at this moment, but in the future, more clusters could be added. The third group “amenity” contains eSports, XSCAPE, Timeplay, and Food & Drinks. They are grouped together because all of these clusters intended to provide pleasure to customers. The fourth group is “add-on experience”, and the logic behind this group is to provide extra screening experience with an increase of price. The fifth group is “service and products” which includes fundraising, resend online ticket and rent or buy. These three clusters are services and products provided by Cineplex in addition of selling movie tickets. The sixth group is “e-gift cards” which also contains only one cluster. The seventh group is marketing, and it contains corporate meetings & screenings and corporate product; and both of them are linked with another type of commerce- “business to business” commerce. The eighth group is “events”, and all clusters in this group are screening activities in addition to the mainstream movies. The ninth group is “movie features”, which include featurettes, interviews, movie clips, on-sets and trailers. All clusters in this group are “behind-the-scenes” type of videos which are provided to customers on the Cineplex website. The last and also the most important group in the final result is “movie”, and all clusters in this group are designed to help customers to find movies and buy tickets.

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

Card Sorting Findings

When we were observing participants doing card sorting exercises, some questions keep coming back and forth. For examples, what is “on-set” and what are some differences between on-sets, featurettes and interviews. Thus we have came up with an assumption that the use of ambiguous terms and jargons create confusion to users. According to the exercises results, words which create confusions also include “stage” and “in the gallery”. Some users also found “resend online ticket” to be confused and suggested to change the label to “resend ticket confirmation” for future use. In addition to these two issues, participants also found some cards to be difficult to group up, for examples, corporate product, fundraising, theater technology, rent or buy, e-gift cards, standard gift card and resend online ticket. Some of the participants even suggest to remove “theater technology” from the exercise, because it seems to be overlapped with the following cards: Prime Seats, VIP, D-Box, IMAX, UltraAVX and RealD-3D.

3. Task Analysis

According to the previous interview and background research, the major function of the Cineplex website is to purchase ticket. The selected two tasks are therefore all related to purchasing ticket for the purpose of testing out the if this function in current website can fulfill the users’ various seeking behaviors. The two main tasks, although all end up with the same goal, are limited to different requirements. The first task is more general, which is to select a movie at a chosen time frame. The second task is about asking users to search for a specific type of movie. It should be notice that users have different seeking behaviors and therefore the methods for them to achieve the same goal is different. When doing hierarchical task analysis, our group choose to only display the most common path that most users would do to perform the tasks. We assume to explore the pain points of the most common path would provide valued information in the further redesign process.

3.1 Textual and Graphical documentation for Task one

Task one is to ask users go to Cineplex website and select a desired movie they want to watch after 6pm in the day they conduct this activity. The following are textual and graphical format of task one .

3.1.1 Textual documentation: 0. Purchase a ticket of a desirable movie Today after 6 PM from http://www.cineplex.com 1. Go to Cineplex Homepage 2. Locate Movie: ➢ 2.1 Hover over “Theater” label on the global navigation bar until the drop down menu appears ➢ 2.2 Click on “Now Playing” in drop down menu ➢ 2.3 Skim over the movie list ➢ 2.4 Click on “NEXT” if do not find desired movie on the current page (optional) ➢ 2.5 Click on the movie title of users’ choice to see detailed movie information on Movie Details page ➢ 2.6 Go back to the “Now Playing” page to re-select a movie, if users think the current choice is not applicable (Optional) 18

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

3. Select Showtime and Location: ➢ 3.1 Click on “Find Showtimes” label on Movie Details page of user’s selection ➢ 3.2 Enter city location on the filter search bar ➢ 3.3 Click on “Refresh Results” on the filter search bar ➢ 3.4 Scroll down to see theater list ➢ 3.5 Choose a desired location then clicking on “Show movies and Showtime” ➢ 3.6 Click on the time of your choice, which is after 6 PM 4. Enter Payment Details: ➢ 4.1 Select Item for Purchase (Choose Ticket type and quantity) ➢ 4.2 Click on “Processed” ➢ 4.3 Enter Delivery information (Email) ➢ 4.4 Choose Ticketing option ➢ 4.5 Agree to Term and Conditions ➢ 4.6 Click on “Processed” ➢ 4.7Choose Payment type ➢ 4.8 Enter Payment information ➢ 4.9 Click to Pay 5. Confirm Order

Plan 0: 1-2-3-4-5 Plan 2: 2.1-2.2-2.3 if find a desired movie on the first page, then 2.5 if could not find a desired movie on the current page, then 2.4-2.5 if movie details are satisfying, then 3 if movie details are not satisfying, then 2.6 Plan 3: 3.1-3.2-3.3-3.4-3.5-3.6 Plan 4: 4.1-4.2-4.3-4.4-4.5-4.6-4.7 if regular user, then 4.9 if new user, then 4.8-4.9

3.1.2 Graphical documentation:

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

3.2 Textual and Graphical documentation for Task Two

The second task is to ask users go to Cineplex website and choose a Chinese movie at a specific theater that is currently available. The following are textual and graphical format of breaking down the task one into subtasks. 3.2.1 Textual documentation: 0. Purchase a ticket for a desirable Chinese movie from cineplex.com 1. Go to cineplex.com Homepage 2. Locate a Chinese Movie: ➢ 2.1 Hover over “Theatre” label on the global navigation bar until the drop down menu appears ➢ 2.2 Click on “Now Playing” appeared in drop down menu ➢ 2.3 Unhide “Refined Your Search” ➢ 2.4 Click on “Foreign Language” under “Genre” ➢ 2.5 Click on “Apply Filters” ➢ 2.6 Scroll down to select a desired Chinese movie

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

➢ 2.7 Click on the movie title of users’ choice to see detailed movie information on Movie Details page ➢ 2.8 Go back to the “Now Playing” page to re-select a movie, if users think the current choice is not applicable (Optional) 3.Select Showtime and Location: ➢ 3.1 Click on “Find Showtimes” on Movie Details page of User selection ➢ 3.2 Enter City Location on the filter search bar ➢ 3.3 Click on “Refresh Results” on the filter search bar ➢ 3.4 Scroll down to see theatre list ➢ 3.5 Choose desired location then clicking on “Show movies and Showtime” ➢ 3.6 Click on the time of your choice 4.Enter Payment Details: ➢ 4.1 Select Item for Purchase (Choose Ticket type and quantity) ➢ 4.2 Click on “Processed” ➢ 4.3 Enter Delivery information (Email) ➢ 4.4 Choose Ticketing option ➢ 4.5 Agree to Term and Conditions ➢ 4.6 Click on “Processed ➢ 4.7Choose Payment type ➢ 4.8 Enter Payment information ➢ 4.9 Click to Pay 5.Confirm Order

Plan 0: 1-2-3-4-5 Plan 2: 2.1-2.2-2.3-2.4-2.5-2.6-2.7 if movie details are satisfying, then 3 if movie details are not satisfying, then 2.8 Plan 3: 3.1-3.2-3.3-3.4-3.5-3.6 Plan 4: 4.1-4.2-4.3-4.4-4.5-4.6-4.7 if regular user, then 4.9 if new user, then 4.8-4.9

3.2.2 Graphical documentation:

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

3.3 Pain Points description

The selected users participated these two tasks before the interview, and our group gained lots of interesting feedbacks from them as they expressed certain frustrations during the performance. Those frustrations are taken into account pain points that current information architecture of Cineplex website suffered, and some of the pain points are shared by both tasks.

When design the task one, our group thought it was a straightforward task, however still one of four users failed this task. One participant feel that putting “Now Playing” label within the “Theater” drop-down menu is not clear (Step 2.1-2.2 on HTA) because they expect movie information and theater information should be two separate groups. Another pain point appears in both tasks is the movies in “Now Playing” web page are split into many pages (Step 2.3-2.4 on HTA). Users cannot look at all the movies on the same page, but need to click through 7 or 8 pages to see all the currently playing movies. In addition, since “Now Playing” page only display limited movie information such as movie title, genre and duration of the film, users need to click one more time to go to the” detailed movie information” page to gain richer information about a particular movie (step 2.5 on HTA) . After read the description and find out it

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H is not the movie they want to watch, they have to go back to the “Now Playing” list and search again (step 2.6 on HTA). Reduplicated steps are required until a desired movie is chosen. Such design also waste users’ time and frustrate them when they are not able to choose a movie quickly.

The pain point that experienced by almost all the participants is that users have to enter location first in order to filter the movie by date and movie title. However, most of the users either do not care about the location or they do not know the exact location they want to go . When they enter the location, they tried to enter the landmark as their keyword and returns no result because the filter search bar does not identify the keyword that are not city or name of the theater. Moreover, the website constraints the flexibility of user’s seeking behavior. No matter where the users start to find the movie information, when they try to purchase ticket for a chosen movie, they have to choose a location and a specific theater before view the available Showtime ( step 3.2-3.25 on HTA). Users are unable to skip over the location option, and both first time users and regular users need to go over this step in order to purchase ticket. The “Showtimes” page and “Theater” page indicate the exact same information to users, which all the theater locations and name are listed. There is no option for users to choose Showtimes as the first step of purchase ticket.

In addition, one user did not find any desired movie from the drop-down menu in the filter search bar, which is located at the home page. Although this user did not apply to the method that is described in the hierarchical task analysis, it is still worth mention here because we find out that the drop down menu and “Now Playing” section in the home page do not show complete list of currently available movies. Users would most likely to capture movie information from the home page first, and they would assume the movies that are listed in those sections are the only available movies in theaters. Thus, users might fail to select a movie they like by seeking movie information from this path.

For the second task, most participants, especially for those who are the first-time users, found out it was hard to complete this task. In fact, both of our first-time user participants failed the task. Generally, all users took longer time to complete it compared to the first task. One of the pain point that users experienced is that they do not know how to start. The “refine your search” label at the home page is hidden so that most of our participants ignore the fact they can directly narrow down movie selection range by filtering genre ( task 2.3-2.5 on HTA) . Another pain point that some of the participants has is that they took time to decide whether some terms used in the genre would lead them to find Chinese movie. For example, “Foreign language” and “South Asian” are two terms in the drop-down menu of genre. Users reported that they do not know whether “South Asian” refer to the movie that relate to the topic of South Asian or refer to the South Asian movies with English subtitles. Also users mentioned that foreign language should not be categorized under “genre” because this term does not really define the type of movies. The movies in “foreign language” genre could also be action, horror, or comedy, and therefore might lead users to filter the movie list again in order to choose the type of movie they want to watch and is spoken in a foreign language. One of the participants took extremely long time to find out a Chinese movie among the movie lists in “Now Playing” page. The participant reported that although she is looking for a Chinese movie, the movie titles are all presented in English name only, and she only recognize it is a Chinese movie by reading Chinese character on image of the poster. By reading the movie title alone would make it impossible for users to identify whether it is a Chinese movie or not.

In short, according to four participants’ feedback from interview session and task performance, our group discovered that the majority of the information architecture problems exist in steps 2 and 3 of the both

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H tasks. The pain points that participants experienced in those sections will become our main considerations when redesigning the website.

Summary:

In a nutshell, after a mindful analysis of the website, we have come to the final conclusion that the existing information architecture of Cineplex website is not a user-friendly design. The current design of the website violates some of the most important design principles and result in users’ frustration, confusion and dissatisfaction. First, lot of important features on the website are not visible to users. For example, on the Cineplex website, “refine your search” button on homepage is not obvious and it would result users taking a longer time to find the desired information. Second, the current website does not enable users to find information through various ways, which restricts users’ behavior. For example, even if users want to buy tickets for a specific time period, they have to bear with the “fixed mindset” of the web designer and begin with choosing a specific theater location. This “fixed mindset” design brings unpleasant user experience, especially to first-time users. Third, the labelling of certain term is very problematic, the website includes too many jargons and ambiguous terms, such as “on-set”, “esport”, and “in the gallery” . This could lead to confusion when users explore the webiste. Fourth, the location search function in this website is not user-friendly in term of restricting them enter preferred keywords such as landmark or postcode. Fifth, the website has serious organization problem that several contents are misplaced. For examples, “Now Playing” could be placed under “Showtime” or on the global navigation bar by itself instead of under the “Theater”. Thus, we have decided to work on addressing those problems list above in redesign project.

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

Appendix

After users click “Rent/Buy” it will redirect users to the following page.

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

Interview Transcript

1. How often do you use this website?

USER1: first time user/once USER2: sometimes USER3: often, use both website and mobile app USER4:first time user of the website/ once; often buy movie ticket through mobile app

2. What do you usually do with this website?

USER1: buy movie tickets USER2:buy tickets, see what movies are currently on, see theatre location nearby his home/restauration--search for theatre location--see if there are any theatre nearby USER3: buy ticket USER4:eport , watch trailer, corporate sales

3. Can you think of one or two content on this website that you find is most valuable and why?

USER1:picture is nice but the background is very confusing, they have global navigate with “rent and buy,” --the user think the rent and buy is where you can buy ticket ( buy ticket and rent DVD ) USER2:” search” is valuable--when ppl search by name; auto update the date is good; the location based info is good--the map--hope to see all the theatre mapped out on a map;the “ seat map” is good ; like the genre, want another filter to search for “language “ USER3: the search bar for location, when click will show the location list and user can choose one of them. Labelling is clear and easy to understand. You can easily find the information you need by browsing the sub labeling. If you want to watch IMAX then there is an IMAX label and you can click to find more information you want. USER4:the filter search bar is most valuable, because i can search with filters ; i think this part is the most important part it just needs improvement

4. Do you think the current website helps you find the information you need ?

USER1:no, it's hard to find the location near me, it doesn't have language selection--use search function but it doesn't work USER2:yes, basically, can help me to buy the movie ticket, i also have scene card, but from the second task, it's hard to find a chinese movie; the categorization is not to detail ; are bit confused about reservation seat ; hard to search for location--keywords searching --didn't know what location to put in-- “ toronto” -- coz dont know the name of the theatre--assume it's for toronto ; want the website to locate his location automatically ; can only find the chinese film by ‘ searching” ; don’t

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

think “ rent” movie is a function he would use; he used the website to buy ticket before think it's ok : “ now playing” button is hard to find ( could be bigger) ; want a pop-up menu to ask for user location USER3: yes. The search bar is obvious for choose the location and now now playing very easily. Also be able to watch trailer. The steps to purchase ticket is clear and understandable so that you won't go to the wrong page USER4:i think the app is better, i would prefer to use the app better than the website; my need for looking for a movie is often happened outside of house, so i use my phone to buy ticket

5. According to you previous experience with this website，which kind of information do you think is hardest to find？Describe what have you done. What will you do when you cannot find the information you need?

USER1:LOCATION, location sensitive, ( considering taking bus and subway to the cinema) ,--but couldn't find location --the users does not know the exact name, search keywords (eaton center) but couldn't find it ( would prefer to buy the tickets at the location) --feels the website is to display movies but not buy tickets; couldn't search by movie language; --couldn't find the movie genre ( ex. Thriller , horror) -- USER2: location search is hard to use; location map ( want airbnb kind of map that show all the theatre) ; USER3: Cannot search the nearest location by input postcode. No genre by country, mix all the movie together. When you want to find chinese movie you cannot search it by country but through browsing the movie list, which is time inefficient. The title of movie is all in English even though it is foreign language (Can only know it is chinese movie or Japanese movie by looking the poster). Now playing list is incomplete and coming soon has incomplete information as well. Sometime surprisply find out a new movie is playing without notice it in coming soon page through previous view. Some movies do not have trailers so you have to search it on another site such as youtube. l USER4: if i want to see a list of movies from different theatres, i cannot find that information.it's giving me too many options of different theatres in toronto, it does not have the function to locate the one that close to me. The “ find a theatre “part is too much information ( i want to see theatre name, location, and a list of movie played in this location, i don't want to click “ show movies and showtimes” again to see the movie info, i want the movie info to be displayed at the same page as theatre and so i can also compare different theatres to see what different movies they are playing. If i do want to use it many time, you should assume if i know the name of the theatre, i prefer to see the movie info, instead of deatil address, and i don't care “vip, imax “ etc these info on the main page, they are not important to me. What movie the theatre playing is most important to me, you can show me the detials ( ex. Vip, imax” once i select the movie .

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

6. From a scale of 0-10，with 0 is the most unsatisficate and 10 is the most satisficate, how do you rate the current webiste？Explain your answer.

USER1:2, confusing ( want to buy ticket!!) , “ rent and buy” is not for purchasing tickets which is very confusing; lots of advertisement , hard to achieve the goal directly, see lots of movie information, but hard for users to buy the tickets in the most convenient way/ direct way; there are lots of global navigation and categories hidden underneath ( hard to find the categories ) ;--too many content, should have shortcut (buy, rent ) etc, instead of displaying many movie information, want a “ buy” immediately next to a movie , the “ buy” and movie information are separated, the current homepage doesn t help users to buy movie tickets directly. There is no shortcut for users to buy movie, no one want to spend too much time on website like this .doesn't encourage users to buy the tickets ; should have categories of genre displayed clearly next to the movie USER2:7. The website in general is ok. Fulfill the need such as purchase ticket. The process of pay ticket is nice and once the website record the information it can retrieve information easily Some minor problems but it's acceptable. USER3: 8. In general the website design in a way to make user find information fairly comfortable. Good for taking time browsing the content and explore USER4:as i frequence cineplex app user, from that perspective, i rate the app to be 8.5, then the website is 5-6. It's harder than the app the find a specific movie, for locate movie form a specific theatre.

7. Can you offer three suggestions to improve the current website and why you think you want to improve these parts? USER1: 1) “ buy” next to the movie on home page 2) “genre” next to the movie, “genre” as the main categories for users to filter the movie, 3) LOCATION sensitive , keyword search --users preferred keyword search ( ex. The building, buy city, buy country, by region/markham/dt etc -- couldnt know where the theatre is located; by postal code search ) Now playing can be a separate label USER2: 1) want the movie info to replace the banner location, displaced at the most obvious place; 2) location search, autolocate where the users are so that user don't need to search by himself; 3) search film by language--multicultural, there are lots of different film from different places;4) chinese version of website USER3: 1)Use foreign language for the movie title as well to make user easily found out information 2) Add searching by postcode feature in searching bar for location and theater 3) Sometime you do not know the english name of a foreign movie, wish to search it by original language the movie has in search bar, so don’t have to waste time on finding the particular movie by browsing all the movie list, especially if the movie is in very behind page user will just assume the movie is not available at the cineplex USER4: 1 )” find a theatre” page, no address detail, no “ vip, imax” info, instead put movie info

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

2) the home page to be just the filter search bar , so all other kind of info is distracting me, all i need is the navigation bar and the search filter 3) it's weird to have “ log in” and “ sign up” in the navigation bar 4) within the global navigation bar, they have too many sub titles, ( ex. Showtime, theatre, trailer are about movie; the rest is not ex. rent/buy is not about going to theatre ) i would suggest to combine the first three in the same category . and i don't think “ rent and buy” should be a main category --i should be related with movie ex. You have “ rent and buy” option under a movie .

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

Observation Notes for User’s Task Performance

1. You are free on Friday evening after 6, can you use the website to find a movie you want to watch ( please describe to us your thinking process)

USER1:Task steps thinking process: specific movie--theater-- specific showtime Cannot find location, cannot search location by keyword (eaton center) USER2”:now playing “to see what's currently on, “ bridget jones’ baby” , click buy ticket; then are forced to enter location; search” bay” , couldn't find the location; search “ cn tower” , couldn't find, search “toronto” --only see “ scotiabank” --but don't know where the scotiabank theatre is, --swtich back to toronto, then enter the time, see a list of movie, navigate through “refine your search” , search “ within 20km” , browse through the website--click on the map--but only see one theatre location on the map ( was expected to see all the theatre mapped out in the website--clicked on the location he like, try to login--double check with the information; confused about the “ non-reserved” term ; processed, try to click on the payment options on that page but couldn't click, click on “ processed” , want to use interact pay--click on the button under USER3:theater, find a theater, search postcode to find location but fail, then search for the list to find theater and then find showtime, searching for movie, looking for the movie title, find showtime bar and click and choose the time, process with no sense card to access payment page, search for ticket and choose seat and process, input email address and agree, go to payment page and process payment USER4: i see the search bar, ( locatiation, movies and time) --so i go to time, i click frid ngiht; i don't really care what i go or what to match, by clicking all movies, they give me a choice ( drop down), but none of them seems interesting , so i probably won't go today.

2. You want to watch a Chinese movie, you want to find out what Chinese movies are currently available and at which theatre ( please describe to us your thinking process)

USER1: Search chinese--no result Go to Theater--coming soon--skimming--no result--give up USER2:” now playing” --” refine your search” --” genre” -- “south asia” / “ foreign language” --start date --apply filter, saw three movies, couldn't find a chinese film--consumed by what it means by foreign language--try the “ south asia” --no information appear, go back to home page; Go to “ there “--try “ coming soon” ( think there many be no chinese film currently on so choice coming soon” couldn't find Search “ chinese movie” then click go--couldn't find any information Search “chinese movie ‘ again-- see the drop down info, and click form the drop down directly, -- couldnt find the location, try to search for the another movie-- saw “ foreign language” genre listed under the movie information--no location appear , are confused about he couldn't find it when searching foreign

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H movie--no location appear ; picked another one;the user always go back to search bar to search for another chinese movie

USER3: already know the location because know which theater will offer chinese movie, and then browsing movie list. Find the chinese movie, and find showtime, choose time, buy ticket (use less time than previous two users because know the location of the theater ) USER4: so i don't a chiese filter to see the chinese movie, so i cannot . wait i see the “ refine your search” --so “ genre”, they don't have chinese in it ( see till C --chronological) ; experience ( Dbox), Location ( within 20 KM) ; i click “find showtime”, there's an error message to ask you enter a location , but i don't know where, i don't want to limit by location, i don't mind go to other places. --so i go to top bar to see if i can see chinese movie--i go to theatres, i click now playing, and then i see the filter, none of them apply to language filter; so i go down to see if they have a chinese movie i can recognize, there is nothing on the first page, there is nothing on the second page, find the chinese movie on the third page, but there is no trailer for it. Click buy tickets--” error “ message again, ask you to enter a location again.so i enter a location , they dont even give me a choice , so i enter TOR ( for toronto), the first option appeared is “ sociatbank theatre torotno”, so i clcike it, but there is no resulte ( the theatre does not play the movie) ; i go back to enter “ toronto” , then there is movie result appeared.

HTA Graphical Format for task 1

Fall 2016 Assignment 1 INF2170H

HTA Graphical Format for task 2