Situation description: Each July 4th, my husband, two young daughters, and I enjoy visiting Colonial Williamsburg to watch the historic fireworks display and enjoy the other special events that mark this holiday. To find a listing of the day's events and what time the fireworks begin, I visited the Colonial Williamsburg website and, failing to see any specific mention of the fireworks on the homepage (despite the attractive fireworks photograph), I clicked on the Calendar in hopes of finding the information I wanted (circled below).

Intended purpose of this site: The Calendar (below), which is updated daily, provides times, locations and links to additional information on specific programs and events happening at Colonial Williamsburg.

Problem with this site feature: The Calendar, while helpfully listing recurring daily events, does not include any information about special events, even in the specific link for the Evening programs for July 4th (below).

Difficulties for users: New visitors to Colonial Williamsburg and returning guests are equally unserved by a daily Calendar that only provides a partial listing of the scheduled events and programs. Despite the popularity and historic significance of the 4th of July in Williamsburg, of all places, the only (rather unspecific) information about the events for the particular day is found on the Special Events page (below). Users wanting any more specific details or information are required to call the frequently repeated 1-800-HISTORY phone number (which kept me 'on hold' waiting for an operator for several minutes, before I hung up.)

Possible solutions: Since the (albeit abbreviated information) for Special Events is available on a separate page, the Calendar page should make mention of the Special Events listings (and other Evening Programs and Holiday events--which, incidentally, only includes Christmas) at the top of the page to encourage users to also look in those additional places in order to be fully informed of all available events and programs for a specific day. To increase usability, the Colonial Williamsburg website should prominently feature complete, detailed information (or links to this information) on Special Events or Holiday programs, it should consolidate and collectively list all of a day's events in its Calendar listing, and it should not require or infer that users visiting the website will want to call a 'hotline' for the information they should be able to access online.