Usability Evaluation of XE Currency Converter

User‐Centered System Design & Evaluation
Assignment 2 – Evaluation
Website Usability Evaluation for a XE world’s largest currency
converter
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Usability Evaluation of the XE world’s largest currency
converter
ABSTRACT
The paper is used for the usability study of the website of
the XE Corporation. The evaluation of the website is done
using a walkthrough designed for some demo users who are
not experts in the field of the usability evaluations. The
website that is being considered is a currency authority
website. The website consists of the currency converters
and it is one of the world’s most trusted currency authority.
The paper provides the insights on the results that have
been obtained form the evaluation of the website and an
overall feedback has been provided on the website in
conclusion at the end of this paper.
Author Keywords
Human interaction; usability; evaluation; data collection;
usability results; currency authority.
INTRODUCTION
The report aims at describing the usability criteria offered
by the XE currency converter website. This will also
include summarizing the possible evaluations along with
recommendation. The website of XE currency converter is
worlds trusted currency authority that ensures an effective
way of converting the currency. The website is serving to
their clients since 1993 and has become one of the world’s
trusted authorities. After analyzing the website it is
observed that around 280 million people visits this
websites. In addition to this there are around 65 million
downloads for this application. There are several different
functions offered by the website. This includes generating
proper packages, concerting the currency efficiently,
generating accurate business rates, providing simple
integration and also allows the users to choose their
currency pair [1.]. Once the user set their currency pair they
receive free alerts by email. However it becomes important
for website to ensure proper distribution of profit so that
they can achieve commercial advantages. In order to make
a post on server or to republish the features related to XE
converter website it becomes important for the site to
achieve special permission. The website aims at providing a
better platform to transfer their currency so that it can
reduce the complexity. This report will entirely focus on the
activities performed by the XE website.
BACKGROUND
XE currency converter is a website that mainly works for
converting the currency. This is one of the largest website
for North America, Europe and Asia. The website helps in
converting each of the currency from these countries in to
their desired one. The currency tools that are offered by XE
tools includes historical currency rates, currency converter
widget, currency email updates and travel expenses
calculator[4.]. The website is serving since 1993 and is
regarded as one of the trusted currency authority. In
addition to this the website also generates emails for
alerting the customer regarding the currency and also helps
in calculating traveling expenses calculator. The working of
the website mainly takes place after the user creates an
account along with proper documentation and book related
to transactions. This all transaction takes place from online
platform. The first step is signing up by creating online
account. Second stage includes quoting the amount. The
user needs to enter the amount of money that they aim to
transfer and the place they want to transfer. Once the user
agrees on all terms and conditions the transaction process
gets executed[3.]. The last stage is tracking the transaction
and checking complete progress. Based on the progress
email and SMS are shared to the user about the amount of
money that is being transferred. It is observed that with the
launch of this website transferring of money has become
easiest activity. Moreover this website offers great security
and accessibility towards the users.
LITERATURE STUDY
Usability of Websites
Usability is referred to the standard that ensures proper
efficiency is provided while accessing the website. This is a
measure that helps in determining the effectiveness,
satisfaction and efficiency so that user can achieve their
desired goal under a specific environment. However the
definition of usability varies widely. It is observed that
different author have different opinion about the concept of
usability. There are some key principles that are used to
identify whether the developed website can be used easily
by users or not. The first and foremost important factor that
determines usability of a website is availability and
accessibility[2.]. The developed system needs to be easily
accessible by users so that they can get easy access over the
site at any time. Second factor that effects usability feature
is the amount of clarity offered by website to their users.
These is very much important to ensure proper clarity is
provided towards the customers so that they can
understand each steps effectively and can perform the
transaction. While implementing a website it is important to
ensure that it offers learnability. XE currency converter
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website offers a better way of disclosing the facts and
features offered by them. this helps in understanding the
function in a effective way. In order to view all the
activities related to XE currency converter it becomes
important to have cognitive walkthrough so that it becomes
easy to determine the working. The usability of XE
currency converter will ensure that it is accessed by users at
any time[5.]. After analyzing the website it can be stated
that there are several features that offers better interface
towards the user. The website offers an easy interface for
ensuring better activity. In addition to this the website also
offers an effective tool that helps in easy access of the
website and converting the currency.
Usability evaluation of websites
It is important to ensure proper effectiveness and efficiency
is offered along with usability components. According to
several authors usability methods toolbox offers a better
comprehensive way of reviewing the method so that they
can have a clear explanation regarding the website. Mainly
UEM is being used for determining the problems faced by
website[13.]. User based UEMs mainly involves observing
the pre defined tasks so that it becomes easy to access the
user interface. The principle based on which evaluation is
being done is mainly referred to as heuristic evaluation.
There are different types of evaluations for determining the
problems associated with website usability. The evaluator
based UEM mainly aims at having a number of expert
evaluator that can access the user interface[6.]. On the other
hand software based UEM uses different types of software
tools for identifying the usability problems. This includes
collecting, analyzing, measuring and reporting the usage of
data so that it can help in understanding the visitor’s
experience. However based on the surveys made it is
observed that an ideal evaluator has the ability to identify
80% of problems related to usability factor. Apart from this
it is important to ensure that proper effective evaluation is
needed to understand the different effects. It is analyzed
that Google analytics helps in evaluating and improving the
design and contents related to websites.
Usability evaluation Feedback
The research aim is to generate feedback on the issues faced
with usability of the website. It is important to consider the
feedback effectively so that it can provide a better way of
managing the usability factors. There are several range of
feedback format that helps in presenting multimedia and
dumping screen format [12.]. For overcoming the situation
it is expected that cognitive walkthrough will help in
analyzing the website details effectively.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Selection of UEM
In order to have proper usability of website it becomes
important to overcome the issues. Thus three UEMs are
being selected that will help in usability evaluation for
website. The three UEMs are Google analytics, heuristic
evaluation and CrazzyEgg heatmaps. These methods will be
able to determine the usability problems from different
perspective. The UEM user testing can be performed
properly so that it can be completed within a certain time
period. However Google analytics was used by XE
currency converter from a long time and offers a better
analysis of the data that existed within the website. In
addition to this there are several benefits offered with the
use of Google Analytics. Moreover it can be stated that
CrazyEggg acts similar to Google Analytics by providing
better insight.
Research design
The research for the website is being prepared based on the
certain factors as described below:
1. Evaluation based on expert by using Nielsen’s 10
heuristic. For every evaluator around 1 hour of time is
being allocated [10.]. The evaluator needs to complete their
tasks based on the recently developed persona scenario:
a.Using the persona of smith the user of XE currency
converter is ready to convert his money so that he can
transfer it to his friend living in different country.
b.Using the persona of smith the new user want to create a
account that will help him in maintaining their account.
c.Using the persona of Steve the interface designer who
aims at identifying the number of people viewing the
website on a regular basis.
2.The second method that is used for usability evaluation is
software evaluation that is being done with the use of
Google analytics. However this approach is limited to user
drop offs.
3.Software evaluation using Crazy Egg was finished by
following the instructions provided on the tools website
[5.]. The aspects that were studied by Crazy Egg were page
heatmaps that is used for indicating user clicks for viewing
the user activity. .
4.Apart from this a procedural model was developed after
analyzing the factors portrayed in different research. This
includes:
 Setting up the objectives in line along
 Developing research questions
 Formulating the documents effectively
 Conduct usability test for the document and
website
 Determining and analyzing the address and unique
features related to website.
 Draw conclusions and make proposals for the way
forward.
RESULTS
The evaluation took place with a total of 5 people randomly
having a little IT from the age group of around 20-35.
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