As Is Analyses
Yelp
1. Visibility of system status
- When entering selections the page, there is a slight delay between the selection being made and it displaying on the screen. During this time a loading logo will come up (reflecting the yelp logo) on the screen and no more choices can be made until the site is done processing your previous choice
- the logo is animated to tell you it is working
- Navigating between other pages moves quickly and does not require a loading icon
2. Match between system and real world
- The language is easy to understand and follow and does not hinder navigation of the site
- The language will change if you select a different country on the front page. This was actually kind of confusing because if I travel to a different country I would still want to see everything in English. There is also an option to change the country in the search bar which does not change the language.
3. User control and freedom
- It is easy enough to search the site to find what you want however, one you're in a business' profile, there is not "return to results" button, so if you click around within the profile you may have to hit back several times in order to get back to your original search
- A nice feature is the sidebar where it lists other places people have looked at after looking at that business' profile page
- can also search for things near the place you're looking (like shopping places near a restaurant you want to go to etc)
- Searches allow you to enter any number of things into the bar itself and filter them on the search page
- these filtering options do not come up until after you enter your original search terms
4. Consistency and standards
- Some search features don't seem to always work perfectly, for example, filtering results by highest rating did not actually put the results in order according to highest number of stars. It was unclear how they were actually sorted
- Business' profile pages all had the same format which made it easy to quickly find basic information like location, hours, etc.
- unfortunately there was no way to compare places to one another
5. Error prevention
- I did not encounter any broken links
- All links seemed to pretty much go where I would expect them to go and did not navigate to anything unexpected
- I liked that the only links that navigated away from yelp were the links leading to a business' website, this made it easier to move throughout the site without worrying about accidentally getting sucked into another website
6. Recognition rather than recall
- Most information is listed in a nice condensed list once you click on a profile - doesn't require scrolling or going to a different page to see different information
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
- I think the front page would be significantly better if the "best of Columbus" section were at the top instead of random recent reviews for various places ("recent activity"). It would also be nice to have the Columbus neighborhoods closer to the top instead of at the bottom of the page in case you don't know exactly what you want but maybe you want to look in a specific location in Columbus. Experienced users may only use the search bar at the stop of the page but others might want to look at pre-made lists to help their searches.
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
- The site seems to have a lot going on - especially because it is based on user reviews there is a lot of text, especially on the front page, that make it seem cluttered and difficult to read through and find what you're looking for
- The side bar on the right side may be a lot of the problem - the information sees useful but it would be helpful if it were spaced farther away from the main page or if the side bar it was in were a different color of some sort so everything didn't blend together so much.
- Not very many pictures - the ones that were there were very small
- I'd personally like to see larger pictures related to the business across the top (instead of the tiny ones that are there) and smaller pictures of the people reviewing things (I don't care what these people look like and am not sure why they have a picture at all - if I want to see who they are I will click on their name to go to their profile)
9. Error identification/recovery
- I did not run into any error messages while navigating the site
10. Help and documentation
- The main links for more help related information were neatly listed at the bottom of the pages
- the FAQ page was terribly laid out and was just several columns of questions under subcategories - very busy and hard to find what you're looking for
- most other help pages were laid out better and were more user friendly
Usability Analysis
This website was review based and had a lot of good information which was generally pretty easy to navigate. Overall, my biggest problems included: the layouts of the pages which were too busy and had too many words to look through without enough pictures, the search features that did not always seem to work quite right, and the poor quality of the front page of the site. However, I did like the search features , although I would have liked to see more, and I liked the way they condensed the information to the top of the profile pages for each business.
Experience Columbus
1. Visibility of System Status
- With the navigation bars at the top and along the side, it is pretty easy to know where you are located within the website, which is helpful for this site, considering it has a variety of topics to explore between.
- The site switches between pages and searches within a reasonable amount of time. I was not left wondering what was taking so long or wishing a page would load faster.
2. Match Between System and the Real World
- The site uses words in English, but there is no easy to find option to use other languages.
- All language on the site is pretty easy to understand; there isn't really any lingo that would be unknown to an average visitor.
- Pictures help users connect information on the screen to real life scenarios.
3. User Control and Freedom
- It's pretty easy to understand where you're navigating to on the website before you click on anything. However, once you click on something, it's hard to know where exactly you just came from unless you click the previous page button on your browser.
- No way to decide whether or not you want to backtrack or how far you need to go back before going back a page.
- No reverse navigation on the page, only possible by browser most of the time.
4. Consistency and Standards
- Commands, links, and phrases are all straightforward and standard.
- One thing that was strange was that on the home page, the scrolling banner would have a link that said "read more" which usually means there is a linked article. However, this would simply take you to either a search bar specific to that topic, a list of events, etc.
5. Error Prevention
- Errors were few and far between. One thing I did struggle with, was that at one point I had opted to add some further search parameters to my food search, such as location and restaurant type, and no results were returned. Then I tried to uncheck these additional parameters, but after searching again, it had kept the parameters that I had just tried to erase. The only way to get it to stop was to completely start over at the home page and try again, this time with more success.
- When this error did occur, there was no message or anything to notify me that things were not going as planned, but rather I found out myself.
6. Recognition Rather than Recall
- Most options for navigation are visible to the visitor, and like I've already said, links are fairly straightforward.
- The option to add restaurants or activities to your "itinerary" is pretty interesting and helpful, and is kept on the screen in the top banner. However, to see what you added you have to click and go to another page which lists your chosen activities
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
- There is an option to sign in as a "member", but I'm not entirely sure what this would do, or if it would necessarily accelerate the interaction for a seasoned user.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
- There is a pretty even amount of information on the site so that I, as a user, do not feel as if I'm being bombarded with information on everything. However, some areas may be a bit sparse on the information provided, leaving me to continue hunting for information on certain restaurants.
- Enough hierarchy that I can tell what is relevant or irrelevant to my needs. Easy to quickly scan for needed information.
9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors
- When I did have the only error I came across, I did not receive an error message or any instructions on how to recover. This might just be a user error rather than a website error, but either way, the only way I was able to recover was from completely restarting my searches.
10. Help and Documentation
- The general information for the business running the website was displayed in the footer of every page.
- I was unable to find a link to a page that provided help for users on the website, or answers to questions/problems users might have when visiting the site.
Usability Analysis:
While the website is pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and easy to navigate, there was still a sense of inconsistency. When I searched for a restaurant, some of the results would come up with pictures, and some would not; some would provide a small blurb about the restaurant and some would require clicking on the link to visit the restaurant's profile in order to gather more information. When I did experience an issue with the search function, I was unable to figure out the problem and had to start my search over again from the home page, which would've been really frustrating if I had been trying to search something for a long time and had just found it, or had spent a lot of time searching before realizing that an error had been essentially nullifying all of my search efforts. Decent website and experience as a user, but I think it needs a little more polish to seem totally professional.
Urban Spoon
1. Visibility of System Status
- The site seems to be a little bit sluggish, especially as it is filtering your search results.
- The site is so crammed-full of information that it is a little bit hard to grasp what you're looking at or what results your clicking might have.
2. Match Between System and the Real World
- While the site truly provides lots of valuable information, there is too much crammed onto the home page. The way the home page is laid out is not logical, and leaves the user scanning the page, unsure of what exactly they're looking at.
- There's really no clear sense of hierarchy, so it's hard to make sense of the information to find what you're looking for.
3. User Control and Freedom
- There are so many links on this website (and it's not totally clear where clicking on the link will take you), so it's easy to quickly get way off-base from where you hoped to be.
- It can be a bit confusing to find your way back to the information you want using the links on the page, however the back-button in the browser seems to do that trick, although that can be a little time consuming depending how many wrong clicks have been made.
4. Consistency and Standards
- After messing around on the site a little bit, it seems like users can begin to anticipate what links will take you where.
- For example, any link that is the name of an establishment will take you to that establishment's profile page.
- Any time you click on a descriptive keyword, such as "burgers" or "American", it will automatically enter that as a key word and filter your results by that term, providing you a list of restaurants within that category. It can be a bit confusing, though, if the term is "drink specials" and you click on it thinking that it will provide more detail, when in fact, it brings up a whole new list of restaurants with drink specials.
5. Error Prevention
- For the extremely high number of links present on this site, the functionality seems to be pretty good. I didn't come across any broken links or error messages while exploring the site.
- One thing that we did notice in class, however, was that my screen and Nicole's screen were displaying differently even after we clicked on the same things. It seems like this site might just be so chaotic and complex that it is difficult to fine-tune exactly what results you will be seeing.
- Another minor thing I noticed was that some links take you away from the Urban Spoon site, whereas other open up in new windows, which I would imagine to be the preferred method so as not to allow people to easily navigate away from your site.
6. Recognition Rather than Recall
- There are some good features at work on this site, such as the use of the logo in the top right corner which links to the home screen and the presence of the search bar at the very top of the screen as part of the banner. Those are functions that users come to expect, so it's good to have those in an easy to see and understand place.
- The site absolutely makes all of the user's options visible, by listing out long groups of search options and tons of reviews/ratings etc. I think the site could actually benefit from having less information available right off-the-bat, but I guess they do a good job of laying out all of the information for the user to see so that they don't have to sift through too many pages to find what they're looking for.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
- Although I am not totally sure what this heuristic is referring to (which must mean I'm a novice user!), I don't notice any ways in which this website could be tailored to each user's unique needs.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
- As I've previously mentioned, there are great amounts of information on this website and it is all competing with each other so that there is no clear distinction between what information is important and what is less important.
- I think this site could benefit from shorter lists and words, perhaps more drop down menus rather than fully-visible lists and there are hardly any images on the site, and the ones that exist are small and insignificant. These are things we'd like to improve on for our site.
9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors
- I did not come across any error messages while using the site, so I guess that's a good sign!
10. Help and Documentation
- Again, I'm not totally sure what this heuristic is referencing, but I did see a section for FAQs on the bottom of the site, which can often be helpful when dealing with problems/issues.
Usability Analysis:
Overall, I think that this site has great information and potential functionality, but the way it is designed is not doing it justice. It could be much more user friendly by not bombarding the users with every piece of information all at once. They could stand to add a lot of white space to their pages, opening them up and making them less cluttered with tons of words and links. The use of larger pictures would also make the site prettier to look at and would help direct your eyes around the page. Overall, I really just don't know where to look first and am overwhelmed by the homepage.
Consensus:
Between the three websites that we analyzed, there was a lot of really great content and features. Two were large websites that operate on a national scale while one had a local focus on Columbus and its neighborhoods. Even though each website had a lot of great ideas about content, functionality and features, these ideas began to fall apart due to a lack of good, clear, consistent design. Whether it was a lack of consistency throughout the site that left the user unsure of what they were even experiencing, or a flood of information coming at the user all at once, leaving them feeling lost and a bit confused (and perhaps even tired), utilization of simple design principles could help take each website to the next level, both aesthetically and functionally.
Although the content differs between Yelp and Urban spoon, they both have similar presentations. With home pages filled with information and clickable links, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of options available to you at first glance. The hard thing about this problem, is that you don't want to take options away from the user. Instead, it is important to organize the information in a way that communicates with the user and helps them find what it is they're looking for without throwing a lot of side information in the way that is irrelevant to the user's end-goal.
Experience Columbus provides a more appropriate amount of information, but might come across as slightly unprofessional. The information is well organized, and the user is able to easily locate information relevant to their needs, but once you get a little further into the site, specific pages lack in the type/amount of information provided for events, venues, or restaurants. Even though the site is well polished on the surface, the lack of consistency may leave the user questioning how reliable, relevant, or up-to-date of information.
For our website, it will be crucial to utilize hierarchy and theme in order to avoid the major pitfalls of these three sites. Using hierarchy will help not only organize information throughout the website as a whole, but will help us organize information on each individual webpage, directing the user's attention to specific areas that will help them find desired information without bombarding them with irrelevant information. Also, the use of a theme will help promote uniformity across the entire site, providing a sense of professionalism, but a lot of the work will also come with making sure each page lines up with its stylistic layout and includes appropriate information.
