Web Site Evaluation - Term Paper Example

April 30, 2007 e-Commerce Website Evaluation As the URL http www.lookers-ice.co.uk resolves and presents the homepage of the Lookers Moving Sounds website, the User is left facing an unknown entity. At first glance, there is absolutely no clue that the website deals with automobile audio systems and other accessories. The human brain would require time enough to relate the title Moving Sounds with music on wheels – which would have been a far more apt title, but would still require an explanatory subtitle. Neither does the title bar of the browser window say anything more. A look at the HTML codes confirms the worst fears. The words car and audio do not figure independently within the meta tags for keywords. This site would hardly be picked up by search engines if someone is looking for something as specific as ‘car audio systems in Lancashire’. Google did not. At least not in the first three pages of the search results. The basic point is that the homepage fails to convey instantaneously what it is all about, a major lapse in presentation. Not a good first impression. But let us take things one at a time, and try to evaluate the website from the perspective of the most important features that any worthwhile e-Commerce website should possess. Ease of Use The concept of usability, which is concerned with making software systems easy to learn and easy to use, has recently gained increased attention with the development and wide diffusion of end-user interactive software applications (Dray 1995, p. 18). Navigation, hyperlink positioning, clear demarcation of advertisement area from content area, use of colour codes and continuity in design are some of aspects on which the usability of a website depends. The website under evaluation does not distinguish in anyway between hypertext and ordinary text. Though underlining of the hyperlinks is not necessary as they are placed in the conventional left hand navigation bar, the font and colour of the hyperlinks are exactly the same as other text used in the site resulting in the impression that the address of the firm are also hyperlinks. There is also no difference between visited and unvisited links. This goes against the basics of website navigability: “Users shouldnt have to guess or scrub the page to find out where they can click.” (Nielsen 2004) The way the website displays its products looks very much like the advertisements or company logo that it carries. Advertisement area and content areas are not demarcated. The danger in this case lies in how users tend to scan web pages: ‘Most famously, users exhibit incredibly powerful "banner blindness." Eye-tracking studies have recorded microseconds-long fixations inside banners but almost never longer gazes or reading. Users dodge even the most obnoxiously flashing banners by training their eyes to avoid this attack on the senses. "Banner blindness" has expanded beyond the deliberate act of not looking at banners to encompass avoidance of anything that usually signals irrelevant information or advertisements. People also disregard colorful boxes in the margin of the page because they are commonly used in ads. In fact, anything thats overly large or colorful risks being ignored, particularly if it includes animation.”(Nielsen, J, Lorangar, H) What could happen is that Users completely skip over the contents of the site. Display of products also leaves much to be desired. Though the products are categorized, items under each category are not listed, but displayed directly. Users would therefore have to scroll down vertically through the page to be able to see all the products. The site however adheres to best practices such as no scrolling for the home page at 1024x768 screen resolutions, not using distracting flash animations and banners and not using separate pop up windows for new pages. Design continuity is also maintained. Simplicity however does not necessarily have to lead to lack of adequate information or drawbacks in style and presentation. User Appeal and confidence In terms of appeal, the web site under consideration is quite bland. A website that promotes audio system is in itself soundless. An element of sound would have helped to create the atmosphere and attract the users. In these days of comparatively higher bandwidths, more audio and even animation elements could have been integrated with the website without compromising on speed. This would have increased the appeal of the site to a great extent. The display of products is at best lacklustre. More details about product features should have been provided as added options. Different views of the products and zooming would have served to enhance the appeal factor. Ben Shneiderman (2004) makes the point forcefully: “I think the computer is a visual machine. We need to look more at pointing, zooming, dragging and selecting. I think we are only at the beginning of understanding how to implement direct manipulation. We need to scale up from a thousand to a million items on the screen. We need to use human perceptual skills more effectively.” The target users of the website seem to be limited to potential customers who are within a driveable distance from the outlet. Over-the-net payment facility has not been incorporated. The ‘quality on a budget’ slogan would be meaningful only if there is a comparison with similar products from other manufacturers. There is very little in the website to instil confidence in its users. There are no testimonials from past clients, there are no comparison of product features and prices, there is no credibility building at all. User interaction with the vendor is only in the form of an unencrypted enquiry form. User involvement is completely ignored. There is no guest book, sign ups for email newsletters or ‘email this to a friend’ facility. There is very little information on the vendor or the second party. A paper on growth of e-commerce in Poland points to lack of consumer trust as a major retarding factor in growth of e-commerce: “One of the major barriers in the development of electronic business all over the world is consumers’ lack of trust that results from: • lack of direct contact between consumer and vendor or bank assistant, • fear of transaction security violence, • fear of personal data security violence, • a shortage of information regarding the second party and its reputation.” (Garnik, 2004) All the factors leading to lack of credibility are evident in the website under consideration. Finally, the website also does not have any certificate or seal of trust from any reputed organization. Fulfilment of Business needs The most glaring deficiency of the Lookers Moving Sounds website is the lack of any facility for the customer to select a group of products and order for them, at a time online. In terms of website terminology there is no shopping cart and over-the-net payment facility. The ‘buy now’ tab along with each product actually takes the user to a enquiry form. Once the enquiry form is filled up and submitted, the vendor contacts the user over phone. Alternatively, the user can also contact the vendor over phone. The objective of e-commerce sites is not only to facilitate over-the-net buying and selling, but also to contribute to growth of the business by getting feedbacks on potential customer preferences, buying capacity, future plans, etc. This is achieved in a host of ways including making customer registration compulsory, use of shopping cart inputs, incorporation of wish lists, etc. Shopping carts are even customized according to business needs. In the site under evaluation, all these features are absent. As a result the, site is not able to respond to the growing business needs of the vendor, nor is it able to contribute meaningfully to business growth. The Lookers Moving Sound website is at best a digital catalogue with a very poor design. But even then it is serving a very basic purpose: “E-commerce is nothing but mail order using an electronic catalog. Anything that can be profitably sold by mail order can sustain an e-commerce company… If its designed right, an e-commerce website can be far superior to a catalog. Good design means offering users more content and photos than a traditional catalog, along with multimedia demos (where appropriate), regular updates, a broad selection, instant international distribution, and an easy way to search the site.” (Nielsen, 2001) Efficiency The efficiency of a website translates into the following for the business: i. Increased frequency in contacts result in improvement in relationship with customers and suppliers. ii. The business can expand and move into new geographical or industrial areas without comparatively significant investment. iii. Information updating is made easier and cheaper. The Lookers Moving Sound website maintains minimal contact with users over the net. It stops short after asking users to send in an enquiry form. Thereafter, more convention forms of interaction take over. This severely restricts the business from developing any rapport with users over the web. Once the range of access over the web is restricted to phone call access or personal salesman calls, the scope for easy geographical expansion of the business diminishes. These limitations work in a vicious cycle crippling the potentials of e-commerce itself. Venturing into new business or industrial areas is also similarly affected. The experience of the user is not personalized. The user is not given the liberty to do anything on his own. No information is elicited out of the user. There is no rapport building with the user. Add to that, the sloppy design and ineffective, and there is a profound adverse impact on the overall efficiency of the website. Jakob Nielsen draws the line from where efficiency assumes importance vis-à-vis usability in the context of the expert user: “Usability consists of five parameters: learnability, efficiency, memorability, error avoidance, and subjective satisfaction. The balance between the five changes for different kinds of projects. The initial phases of learnability have dominated Web usability because people leave Websites that they cant figure out on the first visit. But if you can make a site sufficiently approachable to get a substantial number of repeat visitors, then memorability would be important as well, and if people used the site frequently, then efficiency for the expert user would become important.” Integrity of Data Integrity of Data is an aspect which is very difficult to assess just by viewing the website. Data integrity would depend on a number of external and internal factors such as net security measures adopted at server side, data updating responsibility, cross-platform issues, access privileges, etc. In well-managed systems, a layered approach to security issues is adopted. “Layered security strategies typically contain all or most of the following items: Security Policy Incident Response Plan Host System Security Auditing Intrusion Detection Systems Router Security Firewalls Vulnerability Assessment” (Melancon, D, 2004) In the website under consideration, much would depend on the organization which is hosting the site. The type of safeguard that is taken by the hosting agency defines the security level of the website. However, as there are no financial transactions over the net, the two main threats of bogus payments and theft of credit card information are automatically eliminated. Conclusion: The website Lookers Moving Sound is severely curtailed due to shortcomings in design, interactivity and lack of crucial e-commerce features. The website is more of an electronic catalogue than a full-fledged e-commerce website. It fails to extend the advantages of electronic commerce to the business, neither does it meet the needs of the business it represents. Works Cited 1. Dray, S. M. 1995. The importance of designing usable systems. Interactions 2(1) 18 2. Garnik Igor. Building Website Credibility – A Prospective Solution to e-Commerce in Poland. CHI 2004, 1019 http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/990000/985957/p1019-garnik.pdf?key1=985957&key2=1552208711&coll=&dl=acm&CFID=15151515&CFTOKEN=6184618 3. Melancon, D. Data Integrity – The Unknown Threat. VP of Services and Support Tripwire, IT Observer, Friday, 30 July 2004 ) 4. Nielsen, J, Lorangar, H. Prioritizing Web Usability, http://www.webmonkey.com/06/24/index4a.html ) 5. Nielsen Jakob, Alertbox, May 10, 2004: Guidelines for Visualizing Links, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040510.html 6. Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox, August 19, 2001: Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce? http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010819.html 7. Nielsen Jakob, Interview - Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/interview-jakob-nielsen-ph-d/4 8. Shneiderman, Ben. Interview with Ben Shneiderman. June 2004, http://www.sigchi.nl/documents/interview-ben-shneiderman.pdf Read More