Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 1

Date: July 12, 2019

To: USGS
From: Kevin Cheng, John Gambino, Dayon Jenkins, Matthew Seward
Subject: Website Navigation
Distribution List: USGS Group Leaders

This report reviews a set of instructions to navigate a USGS website that is assessing
groundwater data. Navigation to the website was set up for the user before a usability test was
conducted. This test was used to test the effectiveness of the instructions rather monitoring the
user’s ability to follow the set of instructions as well as determine which parts of the instructions
may have been unclear in navigating the USGS website. After carefully reading over data
received from the users, we were able to rewrite these instructions to help future users navigate
the website.

Test Objective
The usability test seeks to determine how useful the set of instructions were for the user in
selecting historical groundwater data. It also seeks how the instructions were useful visually,
from the layout to text. The users’ responses help in modifying the instructions when analyzing
the instructions alongside the key objectives.

Results
Areas of Strength
The key strength of the instruction were the screenshots, as they were the main focal points that
the users pay attention to.

Areas for Improvement

A lot of the screenshots in the original instructions are too close to the text and overly large.
They take the user’s attention away from the text which causes the user to focus more on the
images as instructions rather than the text. Most users will read the first sentence or even the
first part of the sentence and then they focus on the image as to what to do further. Separating
the images and emphasizing the text could help.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 2

Questionnaire
Close Ended Question Results
The users were asked the following close-ended questions:
1. Did you finish the set of instructions?
2. Were there any parts that you found frustrating or hard?
3. Were there enough visuals?

● Most users finished the instructions around 4 minutes.

● All the users found the instructions confusing from step 6 to step 9.
● All of them also reported that the instructions did not match to what the website
displays.
● All the users were satisfied with the number of visuals.

Open Ended Responses

The users were also asked the following open-ended questions:
1. What parts of the instructions helped you navigate the site the most?
2. What other visuals could have been included if there weren’t enough? Should
some visuals have been excluded?
3. What else could be added or removed to make these instructions more usable?

● All users answered that the visuals helped them sometimes

● Most users said that the visuals were overwhelming and not distinguishable from
the text
● Most users wanted some visuals to be removed as they were unnecessary, such
as the images from step 2 and 3
● Most users wanted the visuals from step 7 to be consistent with the website

Recommendations
The users’ responses were helpful in determining what needed to be done to improve the
instructions. Many users suggested that the visuals could be distinguishable from the
instructions text and match to what the site displayed, thus some visuals were excluded or
reduced and put inside a box to separate it from the text. They were also confused by the
instructions on whether they should be following the visuals’ examples or overwhelmed by the
amount of information they are seeing between the instructions and the website. We bolded
keywords so that the users can select the choices they want and reduced the image’s size.
Finally, the users were confused by how to get the data that they choose from the site. This was
due to the fact that the users did not put in the correct range for the dates. Thus, we highlighted
the date range in both the visual and the instruction to make sure the user does not miss it.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 3

Appendix A - Original Instructions

How do I access historical groundwater

data?
How to download historical continuous groundwater data:

Step 1
Start at the USGS Water Data for the Nation homepage at: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/nwis

Step 2
Click on the blue Groundwater button.

Step 3
Click on the blue Daily data button.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 4

Step 4
Search for sites with continuous groundwater data by choosing from the site selection criteria
options. In this example, Hydrologic Region and Site Type are selected. When the selection
criteria have been chosen, click Submit.

Step 5
Select the specific attributes for the retrieval. In this example, Wells are the default, and the
Hawaii Region is selected for the site type and the hydrologic region.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 5

Step 6
Select the desired parameters for retrieval. In this example, Wells in the Hawaii Region that
include Groundwater level relative to Mean Sea Level (MSL), in feet, are the selected
criteria. Note: You can choose one or more parameters --or--leave blank to select all:
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 6

Step 7
Scroll down to choose the desired output format. In this example, the Display Summary of
Selected Sites is as a table of sites sorted by site number and will be retrieved for the
previous 365 days. When the selection criteria have been chosen, click Submit.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 7

Step 8
The screen returned for this example lists 71 Groundwater sites in the Hawaii Region that
meet the selected search criteria. Each site is listed by Agency, Site Number, and Site Name.
The Site Number is a link to the station page. Choose the station that you are interested in. In
this example, station 194327156002301 (8-4360-01 Kalaoa N. Kona (W12-11), HI) is chosen.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 8

Step 9
This takes us to the station page that includes all Available Parameters with continuous data
for this site, Period of Record for each parameter, the Output formats (defaulted to Graph),
and Begin/End date (defaulted to the past year).The output format can be either be a graph
(with or without statistics and measurements), a table of data, or a Tab-separated file (with or
without discrete measurements) that can be imported to an analysis program, such as Excel,
Access, or S-Plus.

Step 10
Congratulations on retrieving your data!
For more information on retrieving data and the different output options you can check out: A
Primer on Downloading Data
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 9

Appendix B - Revised Instructions

How do I access historical groundwater data?

How to download historical continuous groundwater data:

Step 1
Start at the USGS Water Data for the Nation homepage at: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/nwis

Step 2
Click on the blue Groundwater button then the blue Daily data button.

Step 3
Search for sites with continuous groundwater data by choosing from the Site Location and Site
Attribute criteria options. When the selection criteria have been chosen, click Submit.

Note: In this example, Hydrologic Region and Site Type are selected.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 10

Step 4
Select one or more specific attributes under the Hydrologic Region and Site Type for retrieval.

Note: In this example, the Hawaii Region has been selected, and Well is the default.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 11

Step 5
Under Water Level/ Flow Parameters select Groundwater level relative to Mean Sea Level
(MSL), feet, are the selected criteria. Note: You can choose one or more parameters --or--leave
blank to select all:
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 12

Step 6
Scroll down to choose the desired output format. When the selection criteria have been chosen,
click Submit.

Note: In this example, the Display Summary of Selected Sites is as a table of sites sorted by
site number and will be retrieved for the previous 365 days.
Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 13
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 14

Step 7
Choose the station that you are interested in.

Note: In this example, station 194327156002301 (8-4360-01 Kalaoa N. Kona (W12-11), HI) is
chosen.

This takes us to the station page that includes all Available Parameters with continuous data
for this site, Period of Record for each parameter, the Output formats (defaulted to Graph),
and Begin/End date (defaulted to the past year). The output format can be either be a graph
(with or without statistics and measurements), a table of data, or a Tab-separated file (with or
without discrete measurements) that can be imported to an analysis program, such as Excel,
Access, or S-Plus.

Note: When choosing a Begin/End date, make sure that the dates selected are in range of the
Period of Record or no data will be retrieved.
 Cheng, Gambino, Jenkins, Seward 15

Congratulations on retrieving your data!

For more information on retrieving data and the different output options you can check out: A
Primer on Downloading Data