Wash Away Your Troubles

Abstract

An existing car wash user interface was evaluated and redesigned to improve novice and experienced-user performance by implementing human factors methods. Researchers conducted a heuristic evaluation, user needs, environmental, and task analyses to outline usability issues within the existing system, in addition to critical considerations regarding the redesign. Results revealed five areas of difficulty within the existing system: organization, visibility, visual distractions, system feedback, and error correction. Researchers generated design strategies to mitigate the aforementioned areas of difficulty, and incorporated them into prototype iterations. A/B usability testing was conducted with the prototype iterations to compare novice and experienced-user performance with horizontal and vertical navigation bars containing and excluding price information. Results indicated that overall the revised system was a success, with the horizontal no price iteration being most effective. However, there were several remaining areas of difficulty that require further modification and testing.