Thank you for wanting to test drive our new website.

Please follow the instructions below and send us your results to [email protected]. There is no format for the results, so an e-mail or a Word, text or PDF document is fine. We are looking for clear, comprehensive and detailed reports.

We will give away one FREE expedition place, as well as other prizes (experience day places, T-shirts, books, etc.) amongst all test drivers. Our web-master and Biosphere Expeditions staff will decide who put in the best effort and will award the prizes accordingly. Please see terms and conditions at the end.

THIS IS HOW WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO TEST DRIVE THE SITE

Use the online list of pages on the site (there are 70 pages on the site) and click on as many pages as you can to assess them. Please consider (and answer) these questions as you go:

1) Design & compatibility across devices

a. What device are you using to view our website (desktop/tablet/smartphone)?
b. What browser are you viewing the website on (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer or other)? If you can use many different devices and browsers, that would be great.
c. Did the website load up slow or fast? Please indicate on a scale of 10, 1 being slow and 10 being fast.

2) Please honestly describe your first impression of the website using three words

3) Starting page

a. What do you think of the Biosphere Expeditions home page at www.biosphere-expeditions.org?
b. On a scale of 1 to 10 how well do you think a new user with no prior knowledge of Biosphere Expeditions would understand what it is that Biosphere Expeditions does and offers? 1 being not very well and 10 being very well.
c. On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your opinion on the amount of content on our starting page? 1 being not enough, 5 being adequate and 10 being too much.
d. If you have time, please note any other comments on this section of the website you may have.

4) Expeditions

a. Please navigate yourself to our Germany expedition page and tell us how you got there.
b. How did you find this task? Please indicate on a scale of 10. 1 being hard, 5 being ok and 10 being really easy.
c. Please read through our Germany expedition page. What do you think of the content? Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 on the amount of information provided. 1 being too little, 5 being enough and 10 being too much. How long did you spend reading the content?
d. Did you find any spelling mistakes, punctuation or grammatical errors on this page? If so, please list them.
e. Hypothetically, if you were intending to go on this expedition, would there be any questions you felt were unanswered on this page?
f. If you have time, please note any other comments on this section of the website you may have.
g. Please repeat this process for as many expeditions as you can.

5) Forms

There are various forms throughout the site. Please complete the following and let us know how you found the process:
a. Download a briefing from the Arabia expedition.
b. Sign up to the Maldives expedition, specifying bank transfer payment. Make sure you put "test drive" into the field "Any special requests or anything we should know about?" so that we know it's a test drive. Let us know what happens next and your general experience with the form. Did all the fields work and were they properly aligned? Were they self-explanatory? Did you encounter any issues?
c. Sign up to the Malawi expedition, specifying card payment. Make sure you put "test drive" into the field "Any special requests or anything we should know about?" so that we know it's a test drive. Use one of your own cards and just charge 1 Euro cent (€0.01) to the card. Let us know what happens next and your general experience with the form. Did all the fields work and were they properly aligned? Were they self-explanatory? Did you encounter any issues?
d. Sign up to the Azores expedition, specifying card payment. Make sure you put "test drive" into the field "Any special requests or anything we should know about?" so that we know it's a test drive. Use one of youe cards but give a wrong CVC security code on purpose so that the card declines. Let us know what happens next and your general experience with the form. Did all the fields work and were they properly aligned? Were they self-explanatory? Did you encounter any issues?
e. Make a payment with a card on www.biosphere-expeditions.org/pay. Make sure you put "test drive" into the field "Any special requests or anything we should know about?" so that we know it's a test drive. Use one of your own cards and just charge 1 Euro cent (€0.01) to the card. Let us know what happens next and your general experience with the form. Did all the fields work and were they properly aligned? Were they self-explanatory? Did you encounter any issues?

6) Other pages

Look at as many other pages as you can and give us your impressions, taking the questions above as a guideline. If you come across any forms, try them out and let us know too.

7) Spelling & syntax

All the pages have gone through a spell check, but there may still be its/it’s, their/there, whether/weather or punctuation or grammar and syntax mistakes. If you spot any, let us know which page and where.

8) Writing your report

There is no set format for your test drive report. Do what you think works best for you, but make sure it’s clear and understandable. Don’t forget to include links to the pages you are talking about. The more effort you put in, the more likely you are to win a place on an expedition.

Recordit.co 

One very good way of showing us what happens as you use the site (particularly forms) is by using http://recordit.co. This allows you to record what is happening on your screen and share this with us via a simple weblink. Just download the app from http://recordit.co and follow the instructions.

Deadline, prizes and contact

Please send your test drive report to [email protected] by 22 January 2018. We will pick the winners by the end of March and then work with them on their prizes.

Next to the main expedition participation prizes, there will also be smaller prizes such as a Biosphere Expeditions T-shirt, books or a place on an experience day with us. We will give away five smaller prizes in accordance with the quality of test drive results and work with prize winners on what they would like.

We hope you enjoy your test drive and we look forward to hearing from you!

Terms

Our webmaster and Biosphere Expeditions staff will decide who put in the best effort and will award the prizes accordingly. There is no appeals procedure, legal fallback and no cash prize instead of an expedition place or other prizes. The winners of the expedition prizes will have free choice of expeditions, provided there are vacancies, and we will work with them on where and when they want to attend. Note that winners have to organise (and pay for) their own travel to the expedition assembly point, just like all other participants.