Australia Tourism Website: A Responsive Design Analysis (CS201)

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes Australia's tourism website's responsive design.

INTRODUCTION
As in the present scenario, different devices have been used for web surfing like desktops,
tablets, mobile phones. But, unfortunately, the web isn’t optimized to all of the devices. The
website adaptation depends on the screen size of the devices. As screen size differs from one
device to another, like mobile devices are constraints to the screen size, so, a different approach
is required for the website for laying down the contents on the screen. Hence, responsive web
design was introduced into the scenario to ensure how different patterns of websites work across
different screen sizes of the devices. Hence, in this report, evaluation of website-
http://www.australia.com/ is done, in order to ensure that all the fundamentals of responsive web
design have been satisfied and how the web patterns work for different devices screens (LePage,
2018).
Identification
The nominated website http://www.australia.com/ is the official Australian tourism website,
which helps the visitors to plan holiday trips as well as business events in Australia. As in recent
years, people’s taste for travel and exploring new places have changed. So, for supporting the
wishes of people and helping them in exploring new places in Australia with mind-blowing
experiences, this website has been built up. This Australian travel and tourism website is capable
of exploring the different cities, states, and territories of Australia for tourism. Also, the website
helps the visitors to identify the different interesting places and things for the pleasant experience
by displaying all the possible attributes of the areas of experiencing, discovering and itineraries.
As the tastes vary from person to person. That’s why, all the interesting places form coastal to
terrestrial, have been displayed by the website. The website is capable for both experienced and
non-experienced persons for discovering new places. It provides a whole schema or plans to
make a trip successful and enjoyable by providing information about the whole country like
states, cities, seasons and weathers in Australia and also, the information about the travel
agencies all over the country. The options for exploring their map and viewing the special deals
and offers at various places are appended by the website. For planning the business events, the
information about the knowledge sectors and all the incentive events in the country are also
provided to the site visitor.
Main features of website:
The user interface and user experience design of the website is too geared towards the goal of
providing the right information about the places and tour at the right time and click. This
Australian website is a responsive web site as all the features and domains have been mentioned
in all the devices in which it is accessed. Clean and intuitive search forms are provided by the
website like for every different taste, different areas are mentioned like for holiday trips, the
places for coastal as well as terrestrial both have been provided by the website. Cluttered search
results are appended into this website which provides enough information to the visitors about
their plans. The feature of mapping the different places by providing the map of Australia is also
provided by the website (Widen, 2018). Also, there are no login criteria. The site is free to be
used by the users. The information about the approximated cost with terms and conditions are
also mentioned in exciting offers which shows the transparency of the site. Hence, by sorting, a
go-through to the main features of this website is:
 Responsive Design
 Straightforward and clean search

 Helpful Tools for searching, sharing etc.
 Great User experience design
 Great user interface design
 Site mapping
 Favorite lists
 Headers and footers appended
 Communication dimensions like contact, newsletters etc.
 Transparency (Ratcliff, 2015)
Based on the technical merits of this tourism websites, the website provides all the features of
information dimensions by providing information about different activities, accommodations,
planning, travelers, business segments, photo gallery etc. The communication dimension is also
appended into the website by providing the contact information, newsletters and frequently asked
questions for the tourists and the business event planners. Online transaction and booking
information are also provided through transactional dimension into the website. Last but not
least, the relationship dimension for incentive programs for business events and deals and special
offers for tourists, privacy policy, all are included in the website (Li, 2011).
Figure 1: Features of website
Positive and negative aspects
As in the present scenario, creativity becomes an economic activity. Similarly, tourism website
designing plays a vital role to influence the site visitors to explore and experience new places.
Also, the creativity of the website has a greater influence on the behaviors of tourists to explore
and select the best destination for them. Hence, some of the positive aspects of this Australian
tourism website are:

 Visual Appearance: The nominated Australian tourism website have the capability of
attracting more and more tourists by its appearance.
 The website has features of displaying the scenic spot popularity and its characteristics
for the relevance of the tourists which is the main positive aspect of the website.
 The mapping of the various places through a map of the country will be beneficial to the
users.
 All the necessary information whether about holiday plans or about business events is
given by the website.
 Flat architecture and easy to navigate.
 Clear pricing is inherited in the offer column without any hidden tax or any unexpected
charges (Digital, 2017)
Apart from positive aspects, there also exists some negative aspects of this website. These
negative aspects are the reasons for the failure of the website and lose customers. Some of the
negative aspects are mentioned below:
 Stuffed more: The website is stuffed with much information and images. This designing
of heavy images and graphics will take a longer time to load whether in mobile or in the
desktop. So, optimized images and information about the places should be there.
 Social integration: More and more visitors will take interest in the site if proper reviews
about the site and hospitality are there. But there is no review section onto the website,
which enables the visitors to lack interest.
 Google maps: However, the mapping between the places is done by the Australian map,
but google map integration is still missing on the website.
 Transparency at every point: Transparency means not hiding any information. But the
price information is mentioned deep down the events in the website. But, at each point,
transparency should be there in the website.
 Site navigation: Unfriendly and poor navigation is there on this website (Editorial, 2015).
Invitation for Review
User 1
Name A
29
M
Age
Gender
S. No. Questions Ratings
1. Is the website offers excellent service of searching? 9
2. How is the performance of the website? 8
3. Is this website responsive? 9
4. Rate the load time of this website according to you. 7
5. Is the website serves relevant information all over? 8
6. Are visitors satisfied while using this website? 8
7. The website offers contact points or not? 9
8. Is this website accept online bookings to agents or for
accommodations?
9
9. How efficient the website is? 8
Review After going through the given website of tourism in Australia, person A reviewed

the website to be most effective one for searching different places of Australia to
explore and for business events as well. According to him, the website is
responsive and can be compatible with any device showing all the relevant
information to the visitors like information about places, bookings, travel agents
and many more. According to him, the website will create a great level of
satisfaction in the user’s mind. Also, the information about contacts in case of any
help is relevant in the website. The social activity linkage to other sites like
facebook and twitter has also been appended in the website for the case of loyalty
and help. FAQ questions have also been introduced in the website for helping the
users. Hence, he reviewed that it is one of the best official website of tourism in
Australia.
User 2
Name B
26
F
Age
Gender
S. No. Questions Ratings
1. How much easy is the site search? 9
2. Do the goals of the website met? 9
3. How much the main navigation is easily identified? 8
4. How much this website creates impression on
visitors?
10
5. What level of experience this do website give off? 8
6. Are the navigation labels are clear? 9
7. What is the visitor’s satisfactory level? 8
8. Rate the user interface of this website. 10
9. How much this website built customer’s loyalty? 9
10. Comparison with other websites basis on ratings. 9
Review After going through the given website, user B felt that the searching and exploring
the places is very much optimized by the website. The satisfaction level is so much
up in customer’s mind. The navigation to different pages also is very easy and their
labels are also cleared so much. The user interface on which the website is built up
provides a better and easy way for the users to visit each and every page whether to
gather any information about places or about bookings. She compared this website
as best one from other tourism websites.
Combined review:
Going through the nominated website of Australian tourism, we three reach to a conclusion that
this website gains very much popularity and effectiveness on user’s mind by providing all the
relevant information about the places and booking details with a very good visual appearance.
The search engine and user interface of this website are too easy to handle and reach any page.
However, the load time of the website is somehow more, so some of the information needed to
be reduced from the content and use of relevant images should be there. The website is
optimized to such extent that even from terrestrial to coastal, all places have been shown in the

website along with the booking and price details. The navigation process of this website is far
better than others. It enables the users to switch to any page without any problem. However,
having so much positive aspects, there are also some negative attributes of this website. The
social compatibility of giving feedback and seeing the reviews of already visited users is not
there. Hence, some improvement in the website should be there by providing proper reviews and
feedbacks by the persons onto the website. Also, for proper guidance of the path of places,
google map integration should be provided into the website to enable the visitors regarding
proper guidance and have loyalty onto website. Hence, by doing these amendments, the website
will become a proper responsive and optimized one for guiding the users to explore different
interesting places in Australia as well as for business events to be organized in the economic
sector.
Improvements
For enhancing the e-business by matching the goals, objectives and branding through this
tourism website, certain recommendation is there so to make the website effective and efficient
use. These improvements are:
 Proper social interface: Proper feedback and reviews of the customers should be
appended in the website for a better social network between the website and the users.
 Less stuff: Some stuff like videos and high definition graphics should be removed from
the website, so to reduce the response time of the website and will be well suited for
mobile phones as well.
 Google maps: Google maps should be imported into the website for providing proper
guidance to the tourists and event managers in Australia through this website.
 Friendly navigation: This website should be made better for navigation and making easy
for the visitors to find what they are actually searching for.
 Conventional colors and design: For “plan your trip” option, proper color combination
and design should be there in order to make ease for the users to understand better and
book the best hotels or hire best agents for them (Park, 2015).
Design Principles
Responsive web design is an important aspect for designing websites, so to make them
compatible with small and large screens both. This ensures that no information is lost in mobile
screens as compared to the desktop screens. As more and more people are engaged in their
mobile phones or tablets as compared to desktops. Hence, the scenario approached to responsive
web designing ensuring the accessibility of the web in the smartphones and tablets. Hence, for
driving responsive design, several principles must be followed. These principles are:
 Fluid Grid system: This principle ensures the use of relative size instead of absolute size
as used in print media. As the screen size becomes smaller, the contents start to take up
more vertical space in mobile phones as compared to desktops. Following this principle,
this website of tourism in Australia also ensures the flow of contents vertically in the
mobile phones and tablets. For example, the content of the home screen of a holiday in
Australia is being shifted vertically down so to support this principle (Rafizeldi, 2018).

Figure 2: Content in desktop view
Figure 3: Content in mobile view
 Breakpoints: This principle of breakpoints allows the layout to change at some predefined
points. The number of columns, in this case, is decreased while using smart tablets or
mobile phones. Using this principle, the given website of Australian tourism ensures the
breakpoints by reducing the number of columns and also maintains the messiness of the
website in smartphones.
Figure 4: Columns in desktop

Figure 5: Column in mobile view
 Web fonts and system fonts: Using the web fonts will be impressive but took more time
to load the page. In contrast, the system fonts are less impressive but appear as the default
font for different systems. So, on this website also, system fonts have been used. These
fonts are simple and can be adjustable to whatever device the surfing is going on.
 Fluid images: The best way in responsive web design is using fluid images which fits
according to the container. This prevents the stretching of images in wider screens as
compared to shorter screens. This website of tourism also used fluid imaging technique
so to prevent the degradation of the images in the desktop view as compared to mobile
view.

Figure 6: Image in desktop view
Figure 7: Image in mobile view
 Nested objects: Remembering the relative positions of the interdependent elements of
website is being imposed without this principle. So, nesting the elements which depend
on each other in a particular container and then changing the position makes it clearly
understandable, clean and tidy. In this website, the home options, for holiday in Australia,
“places to go”, “things to do”, “plan your trips” and “offers” are nested into a container
for the mobile view (Ruluks, 2014).
Figure 8: Feed in desktop view

Figure 9: Feed in mobile view
 Don’t give extra spaces: Adding irrelevantly more spaces in between the contents makes
the user think that there is not much information on the website. This principle is also
followed by the Australian tourism website. No extra spaces are provided between the
contents of places for holidays and business events.
 Use of vector images than bitmaps: Completely responsive websites compatible with
desktops and mobile phones uses vector images instead of bitmaps. That’s why the
resizing in mobile view is supported by these vector images. This website also uses
vector images instead of bitmaps (Admin, 2017).
Comment on tools
We have used Google device simulator to review this site of tourism in Australia. For this
process, Developer tools of Google Chrome is being used which is enabled by clicking on the
instant and then device simulation option is being displayed.
Pros:
 This simulator is very fast as compared to other ones.
 Only software is simulated by this tool.
 Different device compatibility is available.
 This tool is easy to use.
Cons:
 Supports only single page simulation.
 Network availability is ensured for this process.
 If network connectivity is slow, the simulation will be slow.

Conclusion
Based on the above report, we have concluded that through the visual appearance and providing
the relevant information, the given website is gaining popularity in the present scenario. As the
present generation highly rely on smart phones as compared to desktops. So, compatibility of
these websites on mobile phones and tablets is very necessary. This website of tourism in
Australia is a responsive website which gains popularity among the users with help of smart
phones. The user interface and search engines of this website is such an optimized one, that the
effectiveness and impression of this website on users are gaining too much. Also, some of the
amendments and improvement need to be focused on like social interface by providing feedback
option to the users and also the review point from which user can estimate about the place, which
gives the visitors proper and optimized mind set to search for places in Australia for exploration
as well as business events.
References
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Retrieved from https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ux/responsive/
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tourism-websites/#742544a44080
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https://www.smartinfosys.net/blog/10-important-responsive-web-design-principles-from-experts/