Website Overview
The focus of this report is on finding the usability acceptance result for Flying Hobbies Website. The report defines two scenarios that are to be followed by the chosen participants for this research. An analysis of the results obtained through observation and analysis of the questionnaires is also shown in this report and a list of features that eased usability is also given as noted by the participants (Techopedia, 2018). The report further gives a number of the recommendations made by the participants and a thorough conclusion of the entire process is also provided at the end of this report.
Analysis
Flying Hobbies website is divided into five sections namely; Home, Toy Planes, Quad Copters, Kites and Shop Opening hour’s sections. This parts of flying hobbies website can therefore be accessed using the top navigation bar as shown below.
Figure 1: Navigation Bar
The homepage in this website consist of a slider that shows randomly various products provided by the organization. It also group the products into three categories and provides a brief explanation of what each category entails. These categories include Toy Planes, Quad Copters and Kites and are as shown below.
The Toy planes sections shows all the products falling under this category by giving their names, images and a brief description on each and every item as shown in the screenshot below.
The quad copters being another category of products offered by Flying Hobbies Organization, it shows a number of items also falling under it and what all these items are all about. This section provides an image of each item and a brief description about it as shown below.The Kite section shows the type of kites that a customer can get from flying hobbies organization by showing their images and what each kite does in the description section. The Kite Web page is as shown below.Lastly, the website has another section called Shop Opening Hours which shows all the days of the week and time when flying hobbies is operational and when it is closed. This section helps the customers know when to visit flying hobbies shops and when not to. A screenshot of this webpage is as shown below. All these five webpages represent the flying hobbies website functionalities in providing general and specific information about their products to their customers.
In all the above webpages, it can be seen that there is use of repetition as a design principle. In all the pages the layout is the same and Items are placed on the same place throughout the website (Niger, 2017). The development of this website have also observed proximity by ensuring that the font used is visible and clear to see and use. The font size applied ensures that any person can be able to locate any item in the website without struggling reading what the text is (BS, 2018). The website have also employed different background colors to improve the contrast and make the website more user friendly. The navigation bar has been characterized with a light blue background and the text designed in white color. The main section has a gray background and the title of the webpage is given in white under a black background similar to the footer of this website. These design principles were meant at improving the website design and improve the look and feel hence attracting more visitors.
Usability Design Principles
Flying Hobbies User Acceptance Test
To get what the users of this website thought about it, a user acceptance test was carried out before the website was released for production (McCracken, 2016). During this process a research population of 5 participants were subjected to the test. 3 of the total population were male while the rest 2 were female. All these users were computer literate and had interacted with other corporate websites before. Each participant in this research was given a desk with a computer that could access the internet. The following scenarios were used during the evaluation process.
Scenario 1
The first task assigned to the sample population was to access flying hobbies homepage and the Quad Copters section. Here the participants were required to view and read the content of the homepage as well as count the number of images on the slider. On the quad copters, the participants were required to view all the items under this section and look at their descriptions as provided in the website.
Scenario 2
With this scenario, the participants were required to use the navigation bar to transverse across the entire website as well as trying to go to the previous webpage from the current one.
The participants were required to take 15 minutes to perform the above tasks. During the evaluation process, the researchers observed the response and facial expressions as the participants access various parts of this website (laitinen, 2005). Once done with this, each participant was handed a questionnaire which had both open-ended and close-ended questions regarding the usability features of the flying hobbies website. The test was aimed at gathering the general feedback on the design of flying hobbies website, the ease of navigation, the clarity and visibility of the website, the layout of the website elements such as images, text and divisions and finally the completeness of this website. After the test process was done, the researchers collected all the questionnaires and analyzed all the results obtained from the participants and this helped in formulating an overall user acceptance result for this website.
Results Obtained
The results obtained on this research was based on the observations made by the researchers and the information gathered from the questionnaires filled by the participants (Norman, 2014). During the testing process, all the participants were involved in both the practical test and filling of the questionnaires provided. The results obtained from both scenarios, was aimed at analyzing various usability factors as shown below.
User Acceptance Test
Ease of navigation
As observed during the testing process, all the 5 participants were able to navigate through the website with no challenges encountered. 3 participants were satisfied with the navigation bar while only 1 suggested improvements such as inclusion of hovering feature and increase of font size to make it more effective (Danino, 2001). From this information therefore, it can be seen that the ease of navigation was satisfactory and the named changes were only meant for improvement but would not interfere with the navigation functionalities.
Consistency
The aimed of this was to analyze the user’s take on this website’s consistency in terms of design and the content represented in this website. From the results obtained, all the participants applauded the similarity of each web page and the arrangement of elements such as images, texts and the uniformity in the way divisions were implemented for the entire website. The only thing noted was the blank space left on the shop opening hour’s webpage where the participants suggesting addition of more information in order to fill the empty space for uniformity.
Content Visibility and Clarity
On this aspect, the researchers aimed at getting participants feedback on the information visibility and how clear the details of this website were to understand (Bias, 2009). Here, 4 of the participants were fully satisfied with the content visibility and clarity while one stated that some items for instance in Quad Copters did not have any descriptions to help the customers understand more about them. Hence they suggested for the description of these items to be provided in order to ensure clarity and distinction of what each particular item is all about.
Completeness
All the participants cited that the website was complete as it provided relevant information related to flying hobbies. Also in addition to make it more interactive and attractive to the users, the participants suggested inclusion of other features such as search fields to make it easier for the users to find a particular item on the website. They also cited the inclusion of a contact section that would allow the users to leave a comment or contact the organization.
The table below therefore, provides a summary of the overall results obtained during the user acceptance test.
|
Features |
||||
|
Results |
Ease of Navigation |
Consistency |
Content Visibility and Clarity |
Completeness |
|
Satisfactory |
4 |
5 |
4 |
5 |
|
Not Satisfactory |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Table 1: Overall User Acceptance Test Result
From the above table, it is evident that majority of the participants were satisfied with all the usability capabilities of the flying hobbies website. The overall satisfactory ratings for all the usability features had an average of 4 participants of those who felt that the website had met all the usability aspects and was ready for use (Ghazaryan, 2014). On the contrary, an average of 1 participant was not satisfied and the participant felt that some improvements such as change of font size and use of more features such as search and filter fields to ease usability was needed. To picture the overall outcome of this test, the analytical pie chart below represent the ratings of satisfaction obtained.The user acceptance test therefore helped the organization to know whether the website had met all their expectations as well as their customers’ expectations and from the pie chart above it is therefore right to say that the results depicts user satisfactory on this new website and hence the organization can go ahead to publish the website for production.
Results of User Acceptance Test
Features
This website has few features that help in improving its usability by the users. Some of these features include;The use of a slider on the homepage which provided a general overview of what the website was all about (Cole, 2017). The slider showed images of this organizations products randomly and this made it more appealing as shown below. Another feature is the use of products images and having the products grouped into category. This makes it easy for the user of the website to find the right product by checking the right category hence saving on time and improving its ease of use.In addition, the website has played around with colors well. At the shop opening hour’s webpage, the closed days are indicated in red and the working days in black. This use of color is so helpful to the customer because it helps the customer note the difference in days easily.
Recommendations
As noted during the evaluation process. The participants provided a number of improvements that could be done in order to make this website more attractive than it is now. Some of these recommendations include:
Use of a search feature. A search feature will enhance accessibility and tracking of a particular information from the website without having to go through many pages. For instance in the case where there are a lot of products represented on a webpage it will be tiresome to navigate through all the products just to find one product hence the need for a search field in the website.
Use of quick links. Apart from the main navigation bar, the participants suggested for use of quick links which will enable the users of this website to navigate faster than having to go back to the main navigation bar.
Another feature recommended was to have an additional webpage that allows the users to post a comment and contact the flying hobbies organization for inquiry.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is therefore realized that it is very important to do a user acceptance test before releasing the website into the public for use. The UAT helps in identifying some of the problems or errors your website might have as well as getting some of the recommendations from the users that might help in improving the website. It is therefore crucial for every organization wishing to release a website or any other computer application to ensure that it meets the user’s requirements and that all the users recommendations are put into considerations.
References
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McCracken, C. (2016). How to Conduct Usability Testing from Start to Finish. [online] UX Mastery.
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Rouse, M. (2018). What is HCI (human-computer interaction)? – Definition from WhatIs.com.
Techopedia (2018). What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)? – Definition from Techopedia.
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