Human Factors in System Design: An Evaluation of Amazon.com

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HUMAN FACTORS IN SYSTEM DESIGN

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Interactive system and its users.......................................................................................................5
Ecommerce Website: Amazon.....................................................................................................5
Use Cases.........................................................................................................................................6
The usability requirements..............................................................................................................8
Performance.................................................................................................................................8
User-friendliness..........................................................................................................................8
Accessibility and availability.......................................................................................................8
Relevancy.....................................................................................................................................8
Clarity...........................................................................................................................................9
The Evaluation Methodology........................................................................................................10
System status visibility:.............................................................................................................10
Match between the real world and system:................................................................................10
Freedom and user control...........................................................................................................10
Standards and consistency:........................................................................................................10
Prevention from error.................................................................................................................10
Recognition instead of recall:....................................................................................................10
Efficiency and flexibility of use.................................................................................................10
Minimalist and aesthetic design:................................................................................................11
Help users to diagnose, recognize and recover from errors:......................................................11
Documentation and help:...........................................................................................................11
The Evaluation...............................................................................................................................12
Requirement analysis and data gathering...................................................................................12
Planning of the system...............................................................................................................12
The Planning procedure can be divided into two types of planning:.........................................12
Procedures to be followed or Implement...................................................................................13
Analyze the Output....................................................................................................................14
Find out the issues or changes....................................................................................................14
Solutions.....................................................................................................................................15
Result of Evaluation...................................................................................................................15
User experience with the system................................................................................................15

Acceptance of the result.............................................................................................................16
The Findings of the Evaluation......................................................................................................17
Usability.....................................................................................................................................17
Feature of System.......................................................................................................................17
System setup..............................................................................................................................17
Evaluation..................................................................................................................................17
Changes still required.................................................................................................................18
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................20
List of Figure
Figure 1: Use Case Diagram........................................................................................................................7

Introduction
The report is based on the evaluation of the interactive system. The selected interactive system
for this report is an e-commerce website that is “Amazon.com”. The report is divided into
segments. The report will include the use cases to describe the functioning of the website. This is
followed by the usability requirements of the system. Evaluation methodology and procedure
will be performed on the selected system in order to determine the usability of it. To support the
outcomes of the evaluations pieces of evidence will be used in this report. The next section will
cover the outcome of the implementation of the evaluation methodology on the website. The
next section of the report will cover the evaluation findings which tell about the usability of the
website. At last, it will have an appendix section which includes all the pieces of evidence and
observations of the evaluation procedure

Interactive system and its users
Ecommerce Website: Amazon
The Interactive System is the system that requires human interaction for performing its
functionalities. The Interactive system is designed in such a manner that the human can easily
interact with the system using this interactive system. The designing of the interactive system is
to perform the communication between humans and the computer-generated system. The
Selected Interactive system is based on the E-Commerce Website which is Amazon. Amazon is
one of the largest E-commerce websites which provides online shopping platform for millions of
users and helps them to buy different goods and items in one place. The Website contains
different developers and the other technical teams for supporting the website. The website is
from last 25 years and providing best level services. The Website can be used in all platforms
like mobile, tablet and PC. The Company provides both tools of interaction application and
websites. This Interactive system is provided with a high level of supports and provides all the
necessary tools for performing the operations. The system support for all type of users on every
platform and this system is evaluated form starting point to one of the leading business parts of
the market (Wang, Wang & Liu, 2016).
There are different users for the Amazon both customer and Sellers i.e. there are users who
purchase from amazon and the one who sells their products on the amazon. There also people
included which deliver the product from source to destination and provide update on the server.
The user can track the details of their orders. The Interface is designed supporting all the feature
which is required in an e-commerce website or application. The usability of the system is
considered accordingly and provided with a high rate of efficiency. The interactive design help
user to easily view the content on the website and there are lots of options which made their
search easy. The options like Filtering, Sorting, selecting the type of product they want,
Categorization, Navigating to the required product, etc. The other services are also provided such
as recharges, bill payments, Replacement, etc. There are some Products available for the user by
amazons such as Amazon Prime which provide online videos and movies.

Use Cases
The User for the Systems are the main elements that make the system usability more useful. The
Use Case shows the cases available in the system and all related functionalities. In the selected
system, The Use cases and actors involved:
Use cases
 Searching for product
 Selecting an appropriate product
 Placing order
 Accepting Request
 Payment
 Shipping order
 Order Delivery
 Feedback
Actors
 Customer
 Amazon
 Bank
 Courier service
 Seller

Figure 1: Use Case Diagram

The usability requirements
The usability requirements are focused on the system user (Smoots, Garstenauer & Blackburn,
2016). The selected usability requirement for the Amazon.com is given below. These usability
requirements cover and include the different areas of the selected website. This includes the
overview of the usability requirement, way to measure it, criteria of attainment, a subset of
affected users, pre-situations and conditions for the measurement.
Performance: The performance of the website is mainly related to speed. This includes the
loading speed of the website. To check the speed different software can be used. This affects
each user category as every user needs fast service.
User-friendliness: This is the most important aspect. The user-friendliness refers that the
website should have easy navigation and an effective interface. To check the user-friendliness,
user trial is the best option. This really affects disabled people. The best case for this usability
test can be when the website has easy navigation, search filters, predictive search, and effective
error handling. To ensure this, color coding and font should be used carefully.
Accessibility and availability: The accessibility and availability ensure that the services of the
website should be in reach of the user, whenever user wants. If it does not happen the website is
not worthy. There are various ways to measure the accessibility and availability of the website
like server uptime, mobile-friendliness, and broken links. If the website supports mobile then it
becomes easy for the users to access it. The worst case for this usability test can be if the server
has maximum downtime and does not support properly in mobiles. The best case for this is when
the server has minimum downtime along with proper responsiveness in the mobile version. This
usability requirement affects all the user categories. To check the accessibility and availability
there should be a backup server.
Relevancy: This refers that the content of the website must be relevant. The content should be
service-centered and user-centered. To check the relevancy of the content, the first services
should be identified. There should be a range of variety in the products and services. This may
affect the younger age customers who don’t have a clear and specific set of requirements. The

worst-case can occur when the website is of e-commerce and prioritization and the variety is not
there.
Clarity: Clarity refers that the website should not be confusing because it may distract the user
from its original goal. To check the clarity of the website simplicity, architecture, familiarity and
consistency should be checked. The worst-case can occur when the website does not have
consistency and clarity. The absence of clarity may also affect disabled people and people who
have less technical skills. The absence of clarity can lead to the dissatisfaction of the customer.
The best case can be when the content is simple to understand and familiar. Along with this the
consistency and standards should be maintained.

The Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation procedure used in this report is the heuristic principle. The heuristic principle is
used to check the usability of the system (Nielsen, 2019). This is helpful in the identification of
problems in UI. There are 10 different principles in this, which are used to check different
aspects of the website interface. The steps/principles of the heuristic methodology are described
below:
System status visibility: This refers that the situation of the system should be available to the
user. For example, Amazon shows a loading status when a product image takes time to load.
Match between the real world and system: This refers that the website should not have
something, which is not understandable by the user. Like, it should have a language option or a
common understandable English language. The Amazon website has a different interface for the
UK and another country.
Freedom and user control: This refers that the user must-have feature to perform actions and
navigate easily. The user should have the facility to undo an accidental action. For example, the
Amazon website supports easy navigation, as the menu button is there on each page. The undo
facility is also there.
Standards and consistency: This shows that the same feature should look and behave similarly
to each page. For example, the logo of the website should be at same place on each and every
page. In the Amazon website the menu button, logo, etc. follow this principle.
Prevention from error: This refers that the website should show any message if anything was
done wrong by the user. For example, on the Amazon website, if internet is not connected then it
shows error, if the cart is empty then it shows a message, etc.
Recognition instead of recall: This refers that minimum memory should be used. For example,
on the Amazon website, it supports predictive results. It also shows recently viewed items etc. to
support this principle.
Efficiency and flexibility of use: The system should be flexible. The operations and
representation of the system should work similarly on the mobile, tablet and desktop. The system

should offer advanced settings for the interested user. Such as, Amazon offers prime
membership.
Minimalist and aesthetic design: This refers to the priority which means the content available
on the page, should be relevant. For example, the sign-in page of Amazon has a minimalistic
design that includes only email, password, privacy terms and a button to sign in.
Help users to diagnose, recognize and recover from errors: This means that the error
messages and notifications should be understandable to the user. For example, during the process
of login, when the user enters the wrong information, then the error message says that you have
entered the wrong credentials.
Documentation and help: This refers that the website should have the feature to help the users
in common issues. For example, Amazon has a separate help page.
In this various user, tasks have been considered that are given below
User tasks
 Searching: This means that the user searches the desired products and services on the
website.
 Loading: This refers to the loading of pages, images, and content.
 Navigating: Navigation refers that the user is able to switch between desired pages easily.
 Payment: This refers that different options should be there to improve customer support.
Also, the payment should be secure.
 Feedback: To enable the communication between customer and service provider, the
customer should be able to give feedback.
 Placing an order: The customer or user should be able to easily place the order.
The evaluation of the website should be done at such a time when the traffic is minimum or less
on the website. This will give a less impact on customer and prevent major loss. In user testing,
users should search and try each and every possible condition to determine the loopholes in the
system. In order to perform this heuristic evaluation, a proper approach should be followed. First
set the goal to determine the requirement of performing this evaluation. In next step, prepare a
backup plan, to avoid the impact on operations during testing procedure. Then decide the time

for evaluation, the time should be chosen in such a way when there is minimum traffic to avoid
loss of performance.
The Evaluation
The Term evaluation suggests the process involve from starting point to the final deployment of
the product. The Evaluation of the system improves the understanding of the system and helps to
improve the functionality of the system ("Evaluation: What is it and why do it? | Meera", 2019).
The Evaluation Process for the given system is based on the human requirements and focusing
on what are the things a human required the most. The evaluation process for Amazon includes
six steps:
 Requirement analysis and data gathering
 Planning of the system
 Procedures to be followed or Implement
 Analyze the Output
 Find out the issues or changes
 Find out the best solutions
Requirement analysis and data gathering
The first step to being involved in the Evaluation process is requirement analysis and data
gathering. The Requirement for the evaluation is to find out and analyzed the other feature which
can be provided to the system which will fulfill all the requirements of the users. Data is gathered
on the basis of user’s requirements and all the resources which provide the basic need of the
system are analyzed. The requirement process is important to navigate to the path and depending
upon this step further steps can be followed. For the proposed system, the main requirements are
based on user requirements like clothes, shoes, groceries, recharges, mobiles, etc. Amazon
actively tracks the user’s requirements and analyzes it using intelligent system.
Planning of the system
The planning is an important phase in the evaluation in which the evaluation procedures are a
concern and all the necessary operations to be performed are planned. The planning phase helps