Comments on the NASA Site

Comments Associated with "Ease of Finding Information" Rating:

• Navigation was horrible. I used search as my sole source of navigation.
• More difficult than it should have been. The search feature did not give helpful results. There was no obvious place to look for details on the missions.
• The only way to find this information was through searching. The Apollo missions are not organized in a logical way.
• Wow, crummy IA.
• Very difficult site, but then again the tasks were pretty advanced.
• Fun! I just realized that I didn't know where to find 'Find on page' in IE7.
• I had to use Google search, since the website's search wasn't very helpful
• I had to resort to Ctrl+F to find the last piece of information.
• I seriously think i was missing something about this site. could not find mission-specific information unless it was called out. I rushed to do it (kind of)...but that's honestly how I'd navigate. Hope i don't mess up your stats. If so, just toss my data
• Search on this site is next to useless. I didn't see any links to help me navigate to the info (if it was even there).
• need to organize apollo missions so someone can browse them easier
• easier to search the internet
• very bad information architecture, search engines helps survive!
• Once I used the Search, I was able to find the info faster. Until then, I wasn't sure where to look and it was difficult.
• I would say I relied on search for this test more often that I usually do. Also, the test questions seem to be very keyword prescriptive -- i.e. using the questions' keywords as search input most often got me to where I could complete the task.
• It is kind of hard to find info by browsing. But the search is REALLY helpful.
• I got lost very quickly. I resorted to using the search because I wasn't sure how to find what I was looking for in the navigation. I am an advanced user but low patience.
• not hard if using search, very hard if using navigation
• I was not able to find any of the information required. It was very frustrating
• Didn't see capability to browse. Ended up using search. No taxonomy or faceted browse. Hard to get a feel for what
• all kinds of info are available. Search results were somewhat obscure. Didn't seem to be well ordered by relevancy.
• It was to difficult to find past details quickly as all sections had latest info on landing page but no cues for past info.
• Although there was some category for past missions but it was difficult to dig further
• The search engine isn't very useful for the two first tasks.
• Had to search for each item.
• Confusing array of interlinked websites.
• nasa.gov didn't support my default browser, which is Mozilla 5. For sites that I absolutely must view, I keep an old donated Win box with IE7.
• Not so difficult
• lots of information to sift though. search function was highly ineffective.

Comments Associated with "Visual Appeal" Rating:

• For a government website it is not as ugly as it could be.
• not bad looking
• Looks nice, just not a lot of historical info on there. The animated delayed dropdowns are annoying. Seems readable and appropriate graphics/colors.
• btw i ran into the characater limit on these boxes and was prepared for the user interaction
• It looks better than it behaves.
• do not know what to expect exactly from this website
• It seems very clean and rich, and I appreciate the Ajax-y interface. It looks fun and interesting.
• brings space to life
• A couple setup problems on the search page. Overall it is okay, unless you are a user that prefers text over graphics, and no bells and whistles required.
• Bad
• color scheme appropriate for content and theme.

Responses to Open-ended Question about Challenging or Frustrating Aspects of the Site

• Navigation was confusing. Drilling in contextually past the left navigation was a just a series of ratholes.
• Coudl not find individual pages for each of the numbered Apollo missions, only for the overall program
• I just wanted an index of the missions and what each did, and it just wan't there (or at least I never found it)
• Search - didn't give me the results I expected. Hard to figure out what the results were of. Vertical tabs (or whatever they are) under Related Multimedia are wierd. Too much stuff opens in unrelated-looking popups
• The information is horribly organized. Search is the only way to find anything, except browsing what is presented up front.
• The information seemed to be organized differently from one Apollo mission page to another, with no common scheme.
• The info architecture seems pathetic. Their model did NOT match mine, which as formed from general experience on this planet and the cues provided in their UI.
• navigation.
• Not easy to find navigation back to main NASA home - Apollo 12 had its OWN home page, and not upward link.
• the search function was not helpful
• Too many broad search results.
• It was hard to follow the organization of the material. The pop-up window--what's that about?!?
• yes, navigation. i don't think i actually found it. and searching didn't work.
• I just couldn't.
• seems to lead you around in circles, doesn't match my mental model
• no place to navigate through apollo missions
• It was very difficult to find a true history, based on actual flights.
• search function was a little slow
• Information Architecture (menu structure). Terrible!
• So much information, so many Apollo whatevers, it's hard to distinguish one from another.
• Search results for NASA could have "best bets" at the top. Had to scroll through lots of results to find something relevant.
• This site was not designed to easily answer the questions posed by the tasks. Not sure if these are core tasks of users of this site, but if so, then site IA is poor.
• None
• Popups were frustrating.
• search engine within the website
• TO TRY TO FIND THE ANSWER
• The search wouldn't immediately show relevant material. If I typed in "Apollo 12," the first page would not be about Apollo 12.
• average person not interested in space program.
• Search and slow response time (may be the fault of my computer)
• The search results seemed to be askew. Completing the Apollo 14 question was hard, since I expected to see a table showing each mission, the dates, the crew, and so on.
• information appeared scattered
• It took quite a while to figure out what you might find in different areas, not obvious.
• No breakdown by mission in the navigation (but not sure if I'd care apart from these tasks)
• the organization of data
• all were frustrating Seems like a random collection of documents that were prepared for some other reason than this web site.
• finding materials through navigation was difflicult
• search results did not seem to accurately return useful information. navigation structure didn't help to find info
• I relied heavily on the search function to complete the tasks. The information is not organized in a fashion to find information quickly.
• Not much capability to browse. Hard to get a feel for what all kinds of info are there.
• frustating
• finding info
• ok
• the seach engine gives too much results.
• The submenus only opened so far; there seem to be sites within the main site
• top-of-page menus appear when I get near them
• I really had to hunt for things, there wasn't the greatest navigation once in the apollo mission section
• search aspects, Navigation skima
• It was easy to use; not challenging or frustrating.
• challenging
• the "missions finder" was the most helpful part of the main website that allowed me to find answers to the apollo questions; however, it was tough to locate the mission finder amid all the current mission news and information that's featured more prominent

Responses to Open-ended Question about Effective or Intuitive Aspects of the Site

• The search results were quite good. Thank god.
• I liked the images, having the thumbnails laid out at the bottom of the page was nice. Images didn't relate to the tasks given but are what I'd principally be looking for if I came here on my own.
• No
• The search was very effective.
• Search searched, that was intuitive. The NASA logo in the upper-left corner linked to the home page, also intuitive.
• none.
• Search was main tool I used. There was no obvious organizational scheme that would effeciently get me to the desired information as quickly as a search.
• not really
• Ability to view/navigate missions by past, present, and future.
• The header on the Apollo page was interesting.
• No, not really.
• no
• pictures and search feature
• nothing
• Search engine helped me but I cannot say it is intuitive. Colors are
• The search worked really well once I decided to use it. I'm generally a browse-type of person.
• NASA site seemed to have some helpful features like "others searched for"
• No.
• the information on the missions
• NO
• It was slightly intuitive when I wrote "walk on moon." It showed me all the pages about Neil Armstrong.
• none
• I liked the Missions Finder, but the categories (Earth, spaceflight, solar system, etc.) don't seem to be correct.
• search is good
• Not really.
• No
• nope
• None
• curent missions vs. past missions made sense to me
• images, search
• No
• Search worked fairly well. I was able to find what I was looking for within the first page or two of results
• yes
• not really though images are good
• none
• the navigation is a bit too complex.
• The top navigation bar is effective
• good search
• none in last 5 mins of searching
• the search was easy to use and returned good results
• some questions induce the answers
• the nav bars within each apollo mission's main info screen were helpful.