IMAT 5209 - Usability Evaluation of Amazon E-commerce Site

This report presents a usability evaluation of the Amazon e-commerce website, focusing on its interactive system. It begins with an introduction and outlines the chosen heuristic evaluation methodology. A use case diagram illustrates the website's components, including reviewers, publishers, sellers, and buyers. The evaluation procedure involves assessing various aspects of the website, such as visual appearance, navigation, and transaction processes. The evaluation results highlight the clarity of the website's presentation, the effectiveness of the search functions, and the overall structure. The report also identifies areas for improvement, such as the length of the scroll-down feature. Overall, the report aims to provide insights into the website's usability, drawing conclusions based on the evaluation findings. References are provided at the end.

Running head: USABILITY EVALUATION OF AMAZON
USABILITY EVALUATION OF AMAZON
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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USABILITY EVALUATION OF AMAZON
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Discussion......................................................................................................................3
Use case diagram of Amazon website.......................................................................3
Components of use case diagram...........................................................................4
Evaluation methodology............................................................................................4
Evaluation procedure.................................................................................................5
Evaluation results.......................................................................................................8
Conclusion....................................................................................................................10
References....................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
This report aims to provide the evaluation of an interactive system and produce the
discoveries of the evaluation. The interactive system that has been chosen for the evaluation
is the e-commerce website, Amazon. A use case of the Amazon website is provided in this
report. The evaluation methodology that has been chosen for the evaluation is the Heuristic
evaluation method. The evaluation procedure is clearly stated in this report. The discoveries
of the evaluation is clearly provided in this report. Lastly, this report concludes with an
appropriate conclusion for this report.
The e-commerce website, Amazon provides the customers with the ability of buying
or selling items on the internet platform. The website of the company Amazon is considered
to be one of the fastest growing businesses in the present world (Curty and Zhang 2013). The
website has an extensive interactive interface that allows the customers and the sellers to
easily communicate with each other and then choose the best product according to their
requirements.

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Discussion
Use case diagram of Amazon website

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Components of use case diagram
Reviewer: The reviewer of the company has the duty of rating the products based on
the reviews that are provided by the customers. The rating scale that is provided by the
company is ranges from 0 to 5 (Zahran et al. 2014). The company provides the option of
badging for the reviewers that provides the real name of reviewer or the popularity of the
reviewers is also provided by the company.
Publisher: The publisher of the company comment the reviews, then publish the
reviews and then rate the reviews of the products that are done by the customers (Muller et al.
2013). This helps in gaining valuable insight regarding the condition and situation of the
products that are offered by the company.
Seller: Many of the sales of the Amazon Company is derived from the sales that is
available from the third-party sellers who sell their items on Amazon (Rafalak, Abramczuk
and Wierzbicki 2014). The company provides a platform for the sellers to sell their items
directly to the customers and promote their products on the website.
Buyer: The buyers are the customers of the company. They buy the products
according to their requirements and then provide their valuable feedback for the products and
it helps in the improvement of the products reviews.
Evaluation methodology
The evaluation methodology that has been chosen for evaluating the business of the
website is the Heuristic evaluation. With the recent developments in the world, the buying
patterns of the customers are increasing towards the internet platform for eliminating the
trouble of visiting the markets and buying things (Yang et al. 2014). The major factors that
influences the website successes are commonly analysed from the perspectives of engineers
and human computer interaction. Moreover, it is important to study the factors that influences

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the success of websites from the perspective of marketing. It is likely to accentuate on the
perspectives of the consumers for establishing the methods by which the e-commerce website
should be successful and to improve the relationships of user-firm. The information of the
behaviour of the online consumer is important to efficiently accomplish the relationship
among the customer and firm that has been exposed as the successful strategy in the
environment of e-commerce (Rossetti, Pappalardo and Rinzivillo 2016). Numerous lines of
research has been discovered for answering this question. The perception of the online
consumers and the intention of the purchasing has been examined for gaining the
understanding of the buying patterns of the customers. It has been discovered that the success
of the website depends on the perception of the users regarding the services and the products
that are provided by the website, shopping experience in the virtual store and the complete
observed risk in the process of shopping. However, it has been discovered that the
fundamental objectives and the mean objectives are essential in understanding the growth of
any e-commerce website (Dragoni, Tettamanzi and Pereira 2016,). Subsequently, it is
probable to find out the aspects that are connected to the convenience of the innovative
digital medium, that is the major advantage for all B2C e-commerce.
Evaluation procedure
When the identification of the key aspects for gaining the most number of users on the
e-commerce website has been done, a heuristic evaluation if done for understanding the
condition of the e-business in developing the business on the internet platform
(Vanmechelen, De Munck and Broeckhove 2013). The final goal is to understand best
methods for helping the designers to deploy the most suitable choices in the website for
gaining higher success levels. The heuristics method of evaluation is the method of
discovering the problems in design and the best practices in the user interface of the e-
commerce company. This evaluation consists of the small evaluators set who are tasked to

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perform an examination of the interface and then judge the compliance with the recognised
principles of usability (Simonet et al. 2015). Despite the fact that the results obtained from
this method of evaluation are not as efficient as the results obtained from testing the real
users, the heuristic method of evaluation presents a method that is highly cost-effective that
gathers the higher proportion of the problems in the design and the usability with very few
evaluators. Therefore, the main advantage are that this method is very quick to use and it
provides the insights in problems of design and usability. As it has been discovered that only
a sole individual cannot find all the crucial issues in the interface, therefore there is a
requirement in this method, which requires several experts who perform an assessment of the
effectiveness of the design of any given website. The heuristic evaluation is executed by
providing each one of the evaluator the duty of performing inspection of the interface alone.
After the completion of the evaluations, the evaluators were allowed to have communication
facility and then aggregate the findings of the research (Xing et al. 2013). The importance of
this task is for ensuring the unbiased and independent evaluations. The initial evaluation
methods were performed for the evaluation of the user interfaces and it was based on the
principles of usability. The revision of the heuristics was done and then refinement was done
for ultimately obtaining ten heuristics set. In the recent years, the fast development of the
internet has led the narrowing of scope of usability of heuristics method for the effective
evaluation of the interface design. The new additions to the heuristics method is the
evaluation of the interactivity among the computer screen and the user or the experiences of
the user while navigating the website (Sharma, Nigam and Jain 2014). In this research, the
approach of Sutcliffe who did the redevelopment of the heuristics bases on the elements of
appearance of the website for evaluating the aesthetic design and the attractiveness of the
website. The author states that if any website is not capable of attracting the new users in
their domain the usability of the website cannot be determined. Hence, the assessment of the

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aesthetic elements that attracts the attention of the users results in the crucial aspect for
achieving any successful design of website. After the establishment of the context of the
analysis, a small group of business experts and academic on the issues of both the conceptual
and the formal has been selected (Öksüz et al. 2014). The group of expert was selected
depending on the experience in the profession and the knowledge on the context from the
perspectives of both professional and academic means. Precisely, there was multidisciplinary
in the group as this group involved five experts in the various fields like the marketing,
usability, merchandising, new technologies, and information system. During the session of
evaluation, the evaluator is tasked to examine the interface various times and inspects the
several elements and then performs the well-defined representative tasks set (Hu et al. 2013).
Then the problems are listed by the expert and all the suitable practices are discovered and
then comparison is done with the recognised principles of heuristics. The evaluator has been
permitted to contemplate any extra principles or the results that emerge from the expert view
and is relevant to the particular context. It is important to understand that the users were
asked to look at the objects from the perspective of the users and base the tasks and principles
of user. Primarily, the evaluation of the appealing nature of the home page of the website is
examined for evaluating the appealing capability of the website. The next step involves the
assessment of the navigation and the usability of the website for evaluating the website
structure (Wątróbski et al. 2016). The user is required to navigate all through the website for
satisfying the requirements. Using this method, and the importance of content of information
in the website are determined as the information quality and the methods the users discover
as helpful in persuading the longer browsing time on the website. At last, the website design
is considered for providing an effective process of transaction. In this stage, the process of
shopping should lead to the ease of use and simple interface for every customer to understand
and use predictable actions that involves the clear paths and effective feedback and the

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emphasising on the cues of security and it would lead to increase in attracting customers to
the website (Morrison et al. 2017).
Evaluation results
Concerning the visual appearance of front page of the Amazon, the evaluations
discovered that the presentation of the website of the company is clear and it uses non-
structured color in the background that avoids any overload in the minds of the users. The
novelties of the products are included in the central part of the website along with sales and
offers with using the enhanced quality images and the colourful headlines (Janani and
Krishnamoorthy 2015). This states the fact that the upgrading of the feature of the site and the
reinforcing of the appearance. There is an issue with the scroll-down which is pointed as a bit
long that can impact negatively in the minds of the users or it can be an unnecessary effort
that is made by the company website (Daiyan, Tiwari and Alam 2013). With the reference to
all the aspects that is connected to the navigation and the structure of the website, it could be
pointed out that the major source of the achievement of Amazon is completely based on the
features that has been supported by the reports of the experts. Using this sense, an extensive
stress can be implemented on the search functions quality that are comprehensive and well
categorised and it is available in all various pages of the amazon website (Irani and Silberman
2013). General search and a refined search is allowed by the search engine of the website of
the company. It has been agreed by all the technicians regarding the simplicity of the fitness
and the navigation structure of all the contents that is available on the website. In a simplified
and logical manner, all the contents regarding the products are organised in which every
category represents the subcategories and the particular items. Besides this, it has been
discovered that the enhanced quality of some particular information regarding the products
qualifies as the accurate and complete website and the availability of some extra information
(Hassan, Mohamed and Sheta 2016). Moreover, it has been noticed that the button of map of

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the site is missing in the website that would simplify the navigation of the users on the
website. It is therefore recommended that the scroll down needs to be shorter by eliminating
the contents on every page or with the means of using the spread labels.
With the sense of process of transaction or the shopping is concerned, the evaluations
discovered that the transaction process of the company is quite simple and secure. It provides
that customers with the assurance of secured payment details and moreover the website
emphasis extensively on the securing of the transaction details except the bank or the
merchant. It provides total anonymity to the customers (Resca and Spagnoletti 2014). The
process of shopping is completed for the customers is four simple stages. Fact is that the one-
click-to purchase method of the Amazon is the crucial reason for the success of the company,
where any registered user can purchase an item with just a click in the stage of payment. The
company provides the customers with the option of cash on delivery that eliminates the doubt
receiving any kind of false or damaged goods and the money is lost. The customers can
review the products and then pay the price of the product. They also provide the facility of
return of products or replacement of products that helps the customers accept the damaged
goods and cannot replace them with a new one. The damaged goods are instantly replaced
and if the product cannot be delivered then the refund of the money is provided to the
customers. It has been positively assessed that the existence of the relevant information in
each and every phase of process related to the security, delivery and the privacy issues.
Commonly, the virtual store can be qualified as the most complete store, along with the
extensive search functions that allows an efficient exploration of huge assortment of all the
products available on the website. Besides this, the interactivity is provided by the enhanced
customisation of the company website among the vendor and the website that might lead to
generation of the improved and durable and reliable relationships with the vendors and the

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customers. The filters that are provided in the website helps in the simplification of the search
methods and selecting the product that meets all the requirements of the customers easily.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the website of the e-commerce website, Amazon
provides a personalised and enhanced experience of shopping to the customers. The e-
commerce website, Amazon provides the customers with the ability of buying or selling
items on the internet platform. The website of the company Amazon is considered to be one
of the fastest growing businesses in the present world. The evaluation methodology that has
been chosen for evaluating the business of the website is the Heuristic evaluation. With the
recent developments in the world, the buying patterns of the customers are increasing towards
the internet platform for eliminating the trouble of visiting the markets and buying things.
The perception of the online consumers and the intention of the purchasing has been
examined for gaining the understanding of the buying patterns of the customers. It has been
discovered that the success of the website depends on the perception of the users regarding
the services and the products that are provided by the website, shopping experience in the
virtual store and the complete observed risk in the process of shopping. When the
identification of the key aspects for gaining the most number of users on the e-commerce
website has been done, a heuristic evaluation if done for understanding the condition of the e-
business in developing the business on the internet platform.

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References
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Daiyan, M., Tiwari, S.K. and Alam, A., 2013. To classify opinion of different domain using
machine learning techniques. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced
Engineering, 3(5), pp.184-187.
Dragoni, M., Tettamanzi, A.G. and Pereira, C.D.C., 2016, May. Dranziera: an evaluation
protocol for multi-domain opinion mining. In Tenth International Conference on Language
Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2016) (pp. 267-272). European Language Resources
Association (ELRA).
Hassan, H.A., Mohamed, S.A. and Sheta, W.M., 2016. Scalability and communication
performance of HPC on Azure Cloud. Egyptian informatics journal, 17(2), pp.175-182.
Hu, L., Cao, J., Xu, G., Cao, L., Gu, Z. and Zhu, C., 2013, May. Personalized
recommendation via cross-domain triadic factorization. In Proceedings of the 22nd
international conference on World Wide Web (pp. 595-606). ACM.
Irani, L.C. and Silberman, M., 2013, April. Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in
amazon mechanical turk. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in
computing systems (pp. 611-620). ACM.
Janani, V. and Krishnamoorthy, K., 2015. Evaluation of cloud based performance testing for
online shopping websites. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 8(35).
Morrison, L., Read, H., Xynos, K. and Sutherland, I., 2017, January. Forensic Evaluation of
an Amazon Fire TV Stick. In IFIP International Conference on Digital Forensics (pp. 63-
79). Springer, Cham.