Usability Engineering: A Case Study of Zara Website Analysis

This case study presents a usability test conducted on the Zara website to identify its strengths and weaknesses from both observer and facilitator perspectives. The study involved interviewing a user and assigning tasks such as finding specific items, adding them to the cart, and resolving sizing issues. The interview revealed insights into user preferences regarding clothing purchases and website experience. Observations, guided by Nielsen’s Dimensions of Usability, highlighted the website's efficiency and user satisfaction, but also challenges in finding similar products. The case study concludes that while the Zara website is generally useful and engaging, some issues need to be addressed, such as error tolerance and search functionality. Limitations include the small sample size and limited scope of the tasks. Recommendations suggest expanding the user group and incorporating more detailed questions for future usability studies. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study resources for students.

Running head: USABILITY ENGINEERING
USABILITY ENGINEERING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

USABILITY ENGINEERING 1
Introduction:
The purpose of this study is to do the usability testing for examining the weakness and
strength of the Zara website. This mini research will help the website to improve the
difficulties that is faces by the users of this website. The aim of this project is to describe the
usability testing from two point of views; the observer and the facilitator. The study has been
done by taking interview of one user for getting feedback about Zara website. Zara is a
Spanish fashion retailer brand which sales cloths and accessories, which is a flagship brand of
Inditex group. The Zara stores have women’s and men’s clothing and children’s clothing too.
The products that are supplied by Zara based on the trends of customers. The production of
Zara is over 450 million of items every year.
List of interview questions:
The questions that to be asked to the user for the interview are given below:
1. How do you acquire your cloths normally?
2. What attributes of a clothing item are most important to you?
3. What is the reason behind deciding whether to buy a particular item of cloth for self?
4. What do you want in your clothes, branding or quality?
5. Do you have any experience previously with the website?
Description of the usability test performed:
In this implementation of usability testing, four tasks were given to the user for
observing the Zara website. In the first task, the user have to find a t-shirt with having a
picture of a cat by searching the entire Zara website. The second task for the user is find
another item with having a picture of a cat and add the two items to his shopping cart, then
view and check the cart. The third task for the user is to find out how the artist can have listed

2USABILITY ENGINEERING
the products of them including the copyright information that is relevant. The final task for
the user is, he added an item to his cart and then he realizes that the size is not right then how
he will fix that. Furthermore, the user has some previous experience about the website as he
had used so many other website like Zara.com.
Summary of information learnt via interview:
From the interview of the user it has been learnt that how a user acquire clothes for
self. The user likes any particular brand or he believes in quality. For finding a good job, the
user has used so many websites. To get a good amount of salary is important for the user. As
well as the user would like to do a full time job instead of jobs that are part time and finally,
the user have previous experience about the Zara website, also have experience about Zara
products.
Summary of observation:
It is so easy to specify the usability metrics but it is just too hard to collect them.
Typically, the usability is measured related to the performance of the users on a set of tasks
that is given. The summary for observation by using Nielsen’s Dimensions of Usability
testing for Zara.com are as follows. Firstly, the website is so efficient, within a very few time
user can become familiar with the website as the most things are simple and clear on the site.
Secondly, the experience of visiting Zara website will give satisfaction to the users. But one
of the biggest issue is, during the first visiting time of the website, it is not easy for the users
to find similar things of the products they are searching for.
Balancing 5Es:
According to Nielsen, five qualities for usability testing of a software.
Effective: Zara is a very useful website and also help the users for achieving their goals.

3USABILITY ENGINEERING
Efficient: This website is so efficient. The website has speed and accuracy.
Engaging: The website has an emotional impact on the user. As the users of this website may
addictive to this website.
Error tolerant: The Zara website do have some errors. As sometimes it automatically removes
things from cart.
Easy to learn: By visiting the Zara website on daily basis they can learn new things from this
such as searching technique.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that the website is so useful. It helps the people to find their
fashionable clothes, shoes and accessories whatever they want for their luxury. The images of
the products are large with having an editorial slant which is so energetic and actually a good
thing. Moreover, the website also has some issues which need to be fixed.
Limitations of the study:
There are some limitations too for the study that has been performed. Only one user
has been selected for the testing as well as the interview questions were very less. The test
should contain more usability questions. The tasks that has been given to the user were not
sufficient for the usability test. If more user could be added then more information could have
been gathered.
Recommendations:
 A usability study should not be done by just examining one person, examining
a group of users should be more reliable.
 More questions should be added for the usability study.
 The usability study would be done at time of recording.

4USABILITY ENGINEERING
Reflections:
The case study proves that the people are having different levels of knowledge and
skills. Therefore some people can find it difficult while visiting this websites for first time but
not difficult for the older users. As an observer I have learnt more about taking an interview
and to make a user study.

5USABILITY ENGINEERING
Bibliography:
Ahmad, N., Boota, M. W., & Masoom, A. H. (2014). Smart phone application evaluation
with usability testing approach. Journal of Software Engineering and
Applications, 7(12), 1045.
Clegg, B. (2015). Fashioning a Model for Zara. Impact, 1(2), 7-12.
Hong, J. I., Heer, J., Waterson, S., & Landay, J. A. (2001). WebQuilt: A proxy-based
approach to remote web usability testing. ACM Transactions on Information
Systems, 19(3), 263-285.
Salvador, C., Nakasone, A., & Pow-Sang, J. A. (2014, April). A systematic review of
usability techniques in agile methodologies. In Proceedings of the 7th Euro American
Conference on Telematics and Information Systems (p. 17). ACM.
Voncken-Brewster, V., Moser, A., van der Weijden, T., Nagykaldi, Z., de Vries, H., &
Tange, H. (2013). Usability evaluation of an online, tailored self-management
intervention for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients incorporating
behavior change techniques. JMIR research protocols, 2(1).
Zein, S., Salleh, N., & Grundy, J. (2016). A systematic mapping study of mobile application
testing techniques. Journal of Systems and Software, 117, 334-356.