Evaluation of a Website by Heuristic Method Assignment PDF
Added on 2021-04-16
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Evaluation of a website by Heuristic MethodFirst Author Name (Blank if Blind Review)Affiliation (Blank if Blind Review)Address (Blank if Blind Review)e-mail address (Blank if Blind Review)Optional phone number (Blank if Blind Review)Second Author Name (Blank if Blind Review)Affiliation (Blank if Blind Review)Address (Blank if Blind Review)e-mail address (Blank if Blind Review)Optional phone number (Blank if Blind Review)ABSTRACTThe paper would include the heuristic method evaluation ofthe website http://irishwrecksonline.net/, the officialwebsite for Irish Shipwreck, which holds the informationabout shipwrecks along the Irish coast. A group ofevaluators has been rigorously surfing through the entirewebsite with a top-down and bottom–up approach to checkif the website provides seamless usability and attractiveUser Interface. Although, it was seen that neither thewebsite has an attractive User Interface, neither it providesseamless surfing experience to the users. The developers ofthe website are thus recommended to implement an ideaabout remodeling the entire website. Author KeywordsIrish Shipwreck, Heuristic method, evaluation, UserInterface, conference publications.INTRODUCTIONHeuristic evaluation method is a process that includes therigorous surfing of a website with the help of a large groupof expert evaluators that go throughout the entire websitetop-down and bottom-up to definite the User Interfaceseamlessness that would provide a user the joy of surfingthrough a particular website (Lallemand 2015). The onlyreason this is done, is to evaluate the issues in the usabilityof a website that restricts a user to have a satisfactoryusability experience. It also provides the information bywhich the issues can be resolved. The following reportwould include the Heuristic evaluation of the website http://irishwrecksonline.net/. The method would include theresults obtained after numerous surfing of the website andlisting the findings. The results would also include aboutthe steps that could be taken to eradicate the issues (RandalArmstrong MIAP, 2018). The report would have evidencesof the information collected. Proper listings ofdocumentation would follow further. This would thus makeout the affectivity of the website to the users.EVALUATION METHODSome policies have to be followed to perform Heuristicevaluation method on any website. The primaryrequirement of the task is to surf the website for IrishShipwreck throughout the entire User Interface todetermine the smooth user experience (Jensen et al. 2016).Various users do this at the same time and each evaluatorsurfs the entire website many a times to confirm theusability performance (Huang and Benyoucef 2014). Therecords need to be collected so that the entire userexperience could be noted down in details.A website evaluated with the help of Heuristic methoddepends on the User Interface entirely, therefore all theaspects by which a UI needs to be checked has to bedocumented properly (Islam and Bouwman 2016). Thisincludes the use of graphics and images in the websitesalong with the consistency and relevance of the textsincluded in the website. One of the most important aspectsof Heuristic evaluation is the redirection links from onepage to another, as the inability may declare the website tobe of poor quality (Hussain and Mkpojiogu 2016). Inaddition, the borders and the margins needs to be checkedalong with the use of padding to ensure visibleattractiveness. In short, the evaluation method would ensureproper ease of use from a user’s end.PRODUCTS EVALUATEDThe product being evaluated in this report by Heuristicapproach is the official website for Irish Shipwreckavailable at the URL of http://irishwrecksonline.net/(Mohamed and Ozkul 2016). The Heuristic evaluationwould include the following:System status visibilityThe connection of the website and thereal worldUser control freedomConsistency and standardError deterrenceRecalls replaced by recognitionsEase of useAesthetic and minimalist designProper Documentation1
The website appears to empty at the first glance. Thehomepage contains the website URL at the top-middleorder in the website which has no significance since a userenters the same URL in the address bar to access thewebsite. The website has a bland overall look withinconsistent fonts all over the website (Hermawati andLawson 2016). The graphics used are not at all catchy andfew links that redirect to the next pages have no textualdescription that would guide a user towards their desirablepages. The information provided in the homepage about thewebsite is also inconsistent and too short to attract. Overcluster of texts all over the website has a bad effect on auser, and similarly almost no contents on a website alsofails to attract users to a website. There is no companybackground or much information about the navigationsystems in the homepage, which ideally should have beenpresent (Nascimento et al. 2016). There should have been aproper menu to which the users could click and the linkswould have redirected to the proper locations. This shouldhave been followed by the brief company history so far andhow it has garnered its position till date. Then the websitecould further contain the information about the services tobe provided to the users followed by information for furtherassistance and contact details of the organization (Oh andSundar 2015). The padding, font and the font colours arenot consistent and neither is the font alignment. On anaverage the total redirection time from one page to anothertakes about 0.6 seconds and there is a home button at thetop-right corner of the screen to every other redirected page.However, the chosen font and the font color are not clearenough in synchronization to the background image whichmakes it unclear to understand at first. RESULTS OBTAINEDThe results that are obtained after risk assessment andaggregated data gathering with the help of the Heuristicevaluations state that the Irish Shipwreck website offers apoor User Interface experience to the user end.The onlyreason for this being the too many inconsistencies noticedin the entire website UI (Paz et al. 2014). There isinconsistency in fonts, colours and backgrounds. Theapproach of the website is too minimalist and it lacks in theproduction of aesthetic website designs. Being extrememinimalistic can also be a discredit since the users wouldthen find absolutely no clue about surfing through the entirewebsite (Hasan 2014). The ease of use is thus beinghampered over here. Another drawback of this website isthe disconnection from the real world. As a websiteproviding information about shipwrecks all over the Irishcoast, the website required to be more realistic in approach,but it has an appearance of a novice developer and gives acomic impression towards the users (Reynaga, Chiassonand van Oorschot 2015). Although, the webpage do nottake much time in loading, there is still low appeal to theuser eye for minimum or no use of graphical icons.Inaddition, it could be said that the website is quite confusingto the users as the tab names and the contents do notsynchronize together (Sauro and Lewis 2016). There is noproper documentation of the entire webpage but there is theprovision for easy navigation through it. In the end, it canbe stated that the website is poorly executed and theHeuristic evaluation brings out the fact that the websitecannot provide flawless user navigation.RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES ACCORDING TORESULTSThe findings suggests that results state a poor UI of thewebsite for Irish Shipwreck information system.The firstand foremost recommendation that arises in the mind of acommon user that it should have a more aestheticallyprepared with better UI, image quality, font size and colorconsistency and redirected links. Backgrounds should besynchronized with the pictures used and the website shouldbe more agile (Yáñez et al. 2014). The website should haveemergency exit options to exit the system while in use foradverse purposes.It is also noticed that the entire webpagepossesses no usage flexibility as the information involvingthe ships demand that the user stop surfing (Hearst,Laskowski and Silva 2016). There is no way that the usercan go back to previous pages by any means other than theback button on the browser. It could be seen that the menubar has no font coordination either in placement or inproper English (Swaid et al. 2017). It is also recommendedthat the webpage has a proper menu with a FAQ optionenabling the users to go and check for the information thatother users have presented during their surfing experienceas well. This would present a much better approach to theusers as they would find is relatable to the real world.RISK ASSESSMENTThe heuristic evaluation of the website for Irish Shipwreckinformation could also have risks associated with it. Thiscould be the biased approaches of the evaluators, theincompatibility of the website to function in all devices andproblems in the internet connections (Bonastre andGranollers 2014). During the evaluation process, if theserisks can be checked and opted out, then the evaluatorswould gain a proper flawless result in the HeuristicevaluationsDATA GATHERING FORMSEvaluation Methods:The evaluation method would followthe cycle for gathering data in due course of the throughoutthe surfing.2
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