Human Computer Interaction and Usability Analysis for Yeemi Ecommerce

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the usability and human-computer interaction (HCI) aspects of Yeemi Pty Ltd, an e-commerce platform. The study investigates the platform's performance compared to industry leaders like Amazon and Alibaba, attributing its shortcomings to issues in application server deployment and user experience design. The report delves into various usability heuristics relevant to e-commerce, assessing their impact on Return on Investment (ROI) and customer satisfaction. It highlights the importance of easy navigation, effective search functionality, clear labeling, high-quality visuals, and a streamlined checkout process. Furthermore, it compares Yeemi's features with those of its competitors, identifying areas for improvement, such as image search, promotional offers, and live chat integration. The conclusion emphasizes the need for design enhancements to boost sales and attract more customers, addressing specific issues related to homepage design, search tools, and shopping cart usability.

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Executive Summary
Yeemi Pty Ltd is an ecommerce shopping platforms. Over the years, the company has not been
performing well compared to other ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Alibaba. Most of it is
attributed to deployment of its application server in the context of Human Computer Interaction
and Usability design. This report presents various usability heuristics pertaining ecommerce and
how they impact Return on Investment. Due to evolution of technology and emergence of
Directory as a Service, there is a need to understand how this affects usability and human
interaction. Usability is seen to have an impact Return on Investment ROI as it determines
customer satisfaction. From report findings, it was concluded that human computer interaction
and usability were the reason behind the failure of Yeemi ecommerce to prosper in the face of
technology evolution in ecommerce. Various design issues were addressed that will ensure that
sales are increased and increased customers to Yeemi.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary......................................................................................................................................i
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
User Centered Design (Usability Heuristics)...............................................................................................1
Comparing with other e-commerce sites.....................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................8

1
Introduction
With the evolution of Technology, ecommerce has evolved to meet technology needs of the
current age. As ecommerce organization grows, there is need to accommodate users. Storage
space is trivial. The extent to which any ecommerce platform succeeds relies on the ability to
address Usability issues and Human Computer interaction heuristics. From various studies, it has
been shown that great User Experience makes for great sales. In this research, an assessment into
three ecommerce platforms – Alibaba, Amazon, and E-bay- is utilized in drawing conclusions on
what has to be done improve on the sales. Usability aspects have been used as a basis for
evaluating success/ failure of ecommerce sites reviewed in this research [1].
With evolutions of three S’s of e-commerce, Human Computer Interaction is an important aspect
in operation of ecommerce [2]. Storage space, Safety protocols and Site design are important
aspects of ecommerce. Scaling up of ecommerce online stores, conventional directories are being
employed to offer storage that accommodates the growing needs of ecommerce sites. Security is
realized through Secure Socket Shell SHH protocols. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol [3]
has been used as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This improves ecommerce positioning on a
global scale.
User Centered Design (Usability Heuristics)
Easy Navigation
Yeemi e-commerce site has very rich content. This content has to be placed wisely to ensure that
users conveniently navigate on our website. Different aspects of our e-commerce platform,
including product information, contact details, history of purchases and payment options have to
be logically arranged. To allow for easy navigation, it is important to address the following:
i. Minimize clicks
Visitors to our online store have to find products they are looking for with ease. They should
achieve this with minimal number of clicks. If it takes them many clicks to locate products, they
are more likely to leave and not return to our online store. Products have to be grouped in a
manner that makes navigation easy. Provide users with drop-down controls to enable them filter
number of products they need view at time. This information however has to load in a few
seconds. This is achieved by providing faster internet speeds.
ii. Search
This is a means by which users can browse products in our online store. Usability of the search
interface makes it more convenient for customers to easily navigate through the products.

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Customers may want specific product or product categories. Our site has to include a usable
search tool. This is located at the top right corner, with a textbox and a button next to it.
By default, this search tool searches the entire site. It also has an option for users to scope their
search criteria. To ensure that users stay within our site, this search tool is customized to search
content within the Yeemi site and restricts outside searches.
iii. Good labelling
Properly labelled content allows for easy navigation. Labelling of trivial information e.g. New
Products, Promotions, Home and Payment Information is essential. Customers have to navigate
easily, from the time they find the product through to check out process.
iv. Precision
Customers know what they look for in our site. There is need to avoid redundancy in our
navigation page. For instance, formerly, ‘Our Products’ was used as a label instead of ‘Products’.
This is more appealing.
v. Videos and images
User attention spans for not more than 10 seconds [4]. Therefore, high resolution images and
videos have to be used to display products.
Easy navigation is essential. It has to be kept simple to avoid confusing the customer.
Homepage
Homepage provides a first impression to the customer. There is need to design our landing page
in a way that leads a customer to what they are actually looking for. It is important to make our
landing page to display a few products to narrow down on choices that customers have to make.
Font visibility
Font selection, in terms of color and size, is important as it enhances comfort to customers when
viewing our products. Relevant information has to be displayed alongside the image of every
product to enable customers take the minimal time possible. This forms part of satisfaction
parameters.

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Cart
A good design for Cart/Basket is an essential usability factor in good ecommerce site. Our
‘Basket’ formerly was not appealing in the eye of the customer. There is need to design this to
grab customer’s attention. It has to be bright, prominent and obvious in the view of the customer.
Trust
Trust is a fundamental aspect for successful e-commerce operation.. Secure access to ecommerce
transactions have to be provided for customers. Through the use of Secure Socket Shell
protocols, administrators are able to gain secure access to our server over vulnerable networks.
Lack of secure access to our online store will prevent customers from engaging in business
transactions with us. Purchasing process includes a Check Out where customers pay for their
product orders. A clear security policy has to be streamlined and clear privacy policies have to be
displayed.

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Special offers
With the competition in global ecommerce, customers look for best deals and offers. These
offers have to be included in the page of our online store. In as much as user experience is
important, the ultimate goal of our ecommerce site is to increase the number of sales and thus
generating profits.
Express Check-Out Process
Check-out process has to be easy and has to be implemented in a single page. It has to include
minimum fields. This process has to be secure, enjoyable and smooth.
Tracking
The evolution of Artificial Intelligence has made it possible to track a user’s behavior while
interacting with software or a website. Ecommerce platforms have to evolve to enhance this
provision to enable them track customer’s behavior. Tracking is essential since it leads to
improvement of software system [5].

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Comparing with other e-commerce sites
Home page
Alibaba’s home page has been designed to match the evolving usability needs of online buyers.
A clear search button integrated with image search is provided. Products have been categorized
in top pane in a way to make easy navigation. However, the home page is biased since men’s
jackets category would have been replaced with ‘Wears’ to include both genders. Although it is a
good practice to personalize the homepage to suit particular customer needs, parameters to track
status of the customer should be provided to make personalization easy.
Our homepage is designed to provide product category to enhance easy product finding. Marques
have been designed to run in a comfortable way to minimize disrupting customer attention while
searching for products. E-bay’s homepage has distracting Marques. Slides have been automated
to run in approximately two seconds, a scenario that makes shy away customer’s attention.
Search
Our search has been designed to include image search. Customers will have an option to take
instant photos of products and our server will automate the search process for the uploaded
photograph. A list of similar products will be provided to the customer in limited load time. With
this innovation, Yeemi will be a step ahead of Amazon and E-bay ecommerce. Alibaba is by far
the only ecommerce site to implement image search although a customer has to select an image
file from their storage device and uploading it before finally searching. This could be time
consuming.

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Promotion and offers
Success of e-Commerce websites lies in improving user experience, keeping it simple, and
winning client’s trust. This will not only result in converting potential clicks into final
transaction payment, but also strongly influence the customer to revisit your website in future.
Amazon awards customers with gift cards. Yeemi has been designed to include this feature
which previously lacked. We will thus be able to generate more traffic and increase our sales.
Trust
Amazon ecommerce provides information regarding the security of shopping with their online
store. This information enhances customer trust that they are shopping securely. Their personal
payments are handled with priority. Yeemi has been designed to include this information,
including privacy statement to enable boost confidence in our customers which will ultimately
generate more traffic and boosting sales. With E-bay, security information is not visible to the
customers. It has been included in the footer section of the site.

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Live chat
One of the recent developments is the emergence of Live chat. With this, customers interact with
the help desk support of ecommerce platforms. So far, of three ecommerce sites reviewed, none
of them has integrated this tool. We have designed a Live Chat tool to enable active interaction
of our support team with the customers. This brings us closer to our customers more than ever.
Shopping cart
Yeemi’s shopping cart has been designed to offer quality. It has been designed to enhance
allowance for size of image of selected product. Besides, it allows for customer reviews and
ratings that will enable our firm in personalizing products and improving on user experience.
This is not the case with other ecommerce platforms.

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References
[1] A. Garrido, G. Rossi and D. Distante, "Refactoring for Usability in Web Applications," 2010.
[2] Q. Wang, "Usability research of interaction design for e-commerce Website," in International
Conference on E-Business and E-Government (ICEE), 2011.
[3] D. Vymětal and P. Suchánek, "Security and Disturbances in e-Commerce Systems," 2011.
[4] J. Nielson, "Human Computer Interaction," How Long do Users Stay on Web Pages, 2011.
[5] P. Majaranta, "Advances in Physiological Computing," in Eye Tracking and Eye-Based Human–
Computer Interaction, Springer, London, 2014, pp. 39-65.