Participants were tasked with finding the best meeting room available to book near Heathrow from three different meeting venue websites. Location and price were a top priority. Search functionality and venue information were put to the test with user experiences’ analysed by Base One’s usability expert, Susanne Wraight and operations director, Paul Hatcher
Regus – www.regus.co.uk
- The hottest section of the homepage heatmap is the booking functionality, which is good as it is its primary call-to-action.
- The search results page is easy to scan.
- There were issues with the form fields: the ‘City/Postcode’ field labelling meant participants weren’t sure if they could search for Heathrow.
- The details for each venue are limited and all participants said they expected more information to be made available – for example, images.
- Displaying price as a total rather than per person is ‘a bit scary’ and the instigation to book was considered to be pushed too hard, too soon.
- Some participants were confused by technical items, e.g. ‘single Internet line’ and ‘additional Internet connection’.
- Participants were surprised to find that several services had an extra cost – particularly lunch.
VERDICT
Layout/Priorities 4/5
Content 4/5
Clarity/Expectation setting 3/5
User rating 4/5
Executive Offices – www.executiveoffices.co.uk
- The landing page contains a lot of information. The clear telephone number is good but the social media links are unnecessary on this page.
- Venue pages are well thought out.
- The search and ‘Get in touch’ boxes are the wrong way round on the page: it is too soon for users to ‘Get in touch’, yet this box is in the most important spot on the page. ‘Get in touch’ is also where you book a room but this is not clear from the title.
- The map doesn’t look like something users can interact with – it just looks like an image.
- The dropdown list of locations is limiting as users can’t search for exactly where they want to go.
- There isn’t a clear way to book online.
- The availability of lunch was included under the ‘Meeting rooms’ tab but it was midway down a bulleted list that had no apparent priority.
VERDICT
Layout/Priorities 3/5
Content 1/5
Clarity/Expectation setting 3/5
User rating 2/5
Meeting Venues – www.mwbex.com 
- There is a clear button on the landing page to say you can book online.
- A free text search, which populates as you type, is in the prime location on the page.
- Search results are easy to scan but oddly the first result is the only one that doesn’t have distance on it and assumes that you realise it is the closest.
- Venue pages are appealing and well structured: tabbed information, a breakdown of floorplan types and capacity, and bullet-pointed lists of features are included.
- There’s another link to book but it uses the term ‘Make a reservation’ which is rather formal.
- Lunch details were hard to find.
- Participants were disappointed by the booking process compared to the rest of the site. It looked like a different site and was complicated and intimating to use.
VERDICT
Layout/Priorities 4/5
Content 4/5
Clarity/Expectation setting 4/5
User rating 4/5
Summary
Regus is by far the largest and most well-known company we tested this month, but lack of detail for each of its venues is the major drawback for booking. A lack of detail can be read as ambivalence by a user – if you don’t care enough to provide them with comprehensive details, then do you care if they book with you?
The surprise in this test was the variation between what the participants thought was the most important part of the task – price or information. Those who wanted plenty of information before booking liked Meeting Venues but were put off by the booking process. Those who wanted prices were happier with Regus.
The testing also highlighted that participants were making assumptions about Internet access that none of the sites really clarified: participants expected wireless access for all those attending the meeting but the sites only talked about ‘single Internet access’ and ‘resilient bandwidth’. Had these been real bookings, we believe there would have been some disappointment on this front for meeting attendees.
Overall Regus was considered functional and flexible but too focused on booking. Participants felt Executive Offices was too confusing, while Meeting Venues prioritised the right features but was let down by the booking process.
All of the sites should look at the information they have available for venues and ensure the basic requirements are listed and prioritised while providing clear links to any additional extras.
It might also be helpful to do more testing on the maps on the site – in our testing they were rarely used despite probably being the easiest way to find the nearest venue to Heathrow.
In this month’s web usability challenge, there was no clear winner of the three websites tested. The Regus site is clearly working despite its limited information but Meeting Venues was the most popular in our testing – despite the disappointing booking process.
