Human Computer Interaction: A Usability Analysis of the ZDNet Website

This report provides a comprehensive usability evaluation of the ZDNet website (https://www.zdnet.com/au/) from a human-computer interaction perspective. It identifies potential users and their goals, analyzes the website's interface, search functionality, and filter options, and presents findings from a hallway testing methodology involving a software designer. The evaluation includes two specific tasks: locating cybersecurity reviews and subscribing to the Microsoft newsletter, highlighting both successes and errors encountered during the process. The report concludes that while the website has a well-constructed interface and effective layout, there are areas for improvement, such as the responsiveness of certain interactive elements and the inclusion of email verification for new subscriptions. This analysis aims to provide insights into enhancing the user experience on the ZDNet website.

Running head: HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION
HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION
STUDENT NAME: WENQI CAI
STUDENT ID: 217383848

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Possible users and their goals:.........................................................................................................3
Analysis of the usability..................................................................................................................5
Methodology....................................................................................................................................8
Functionality of the interface...........................................................................................................8
Reference.......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction:
Webpages usability can be measured by considering some vital aspects such as design,
accessibility, affordance, visibility, layout and interface. This repot will be evaluate the ZDNet
website “https://www.zdnet.com/au/”including the analysis and functionality evolution. This
website generally provides news updates related to technology world. It has a pleasant interface
with suitable navigation bar, from where important and most viewed topics are characterized as
Security, Mobility, Storage, hardware so on. The interface is very professional and suitable
compare to other standard newsletters sites. The dipper evaluation of the website will be
analyzed through random user perspective as hallway testing. This website mainly provides
recent updates of technology related article for estimated eleven countries. It displays the specific
country ‘news from where user is accessing the page by default. It is quite accurate and efficient,
user also can access other countries technology related articles from the top section named
“Edition”. The search section is also well-maid as it predicts auto complete keywords and
displays related article in several category including “trending now” section. For several topic in
newsletters the offer several subscription option after log-in to their network for personalize the
user experience and provide specific news, user is interested to be familiar with. The home page
takes 1.69s to load properly.
Possible users and their goals:
This website is designed for the basically provide news update on technology related
article. The technologies evaluation is rapidly increasing every day. It is not possible to familiar
with this updates for every individuals. This website can be handy The most likely users are
technology and updated news seekers who are seeking for news of updated technology and
article on them to gain broad knowledge such as before or after releases of any particular

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product. This page is also also have membership option which can be utilized to get user
personalized news as suited them. The goals of the possible user is following-
 To get daily news update associate with technology.
 To gain knowledge of a particular product or technology.
 To read articles published by specific writers.
 Subscribe to specific newsletters.

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Matthew is a software designer who is chosen for his specialist in technology as he works
at as a software developer in an IT company. He is highly familiar with the WordPress, 3dmax
and other designing software. He is also experienced in the field and also have a good social
interaction skill. Mathew is chosen as the user to test the usability and functionality of the
website. He have experience over 20 year in the field with an extensive domain knowledge. He is
also familiar with Pro-tools, WordPress, 3D SMX and abode suite. He is also interested to gain
new knowledge about new interface associate with his field. As he is a specialist in the software
developer field, he is preferred for standard intention to evaluate the website in an effective
manner.
Analysis of the usability
Interface: The interface is very suitable and effective as it used almost similar layout and shade
for every pages. The interface is also well-maid that fit all the devices such as desktop, laptop

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and tablets. It is constructed with auto fix program that makes it suitable for every device and
area as the websites width and lengths is not fixed to a minimum or maximum value.
Figure 1: The ZDNet webpage in full scape
Figure 2: interface for small scape devices

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As we seen analyze the navigation bar appears differently from full scape to minimize scape. For
desktop version the menu section is illustrated with many sections such as security, cloud,
mobility, storage and so on. While in phone mode, the section shrinks as only ”MENU” section
is available from which sub sections are accessible.
Search Button: Next user tried to utilize the search button. The search section is also well
constructed as it also has the auto competition enable. It was also fast and accurate that makes it
effective to get desired result. User tried to search a random technology product as surface, a
Microsoft’s product. The result is shown below-
Figure 3: The search section result
The search section is effective as it delivers the relevant articles with proper videos as user
desired. The results also can be filtered. The default view is in ascending order by time of
publish article or video.
Filter: For every search result the “FILTER” section is available from which user can sort down
the articles or relevant document as desired. The filter section is consist of multiple option as

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sort, content type, Topic and publish date. According to the user the filter section is well
constructed and effective that makes it is easy to find any particular article or any relevant
information.
This section helps to get desired relevant information without wasting time to scroll over many
dataset of articles. However the filter section is not available for every subsection in the MENU.
This is considered as a bad aspect of this website.
Methodology
This portion of this report demonstrate relevant methodologies that will be used for examine the
usability of the website. Doing heuristic evaluation properly involves careful preparation. This
method is very effective to complete the effective evaluation of this website. Different research
approaches has been taken for recognizing the quality outline standards. This methodology are
mostly acquaintances with the homepage usability or Jakob Nielsen’s 113 guidelines (Dickinger
and Stangl 2013). This methodology will recount through general procedure to search for
usability heuristic violations rather than just have a look and name a few usability issues (Lynch,
Schwerha and Johanson 2013). The primary approach is perusing different web journals that
offer the data of plan standards. The Various websites speak to data on the plan standards.
Functionality of the interface
In this section, two tasked is discuss which will performed by the user to check the
functionality of the interface. The first task is “locate reviews and opinion pieces related to
cybersecurity from the past 6 months” and the second task is “subscribe to Microsoft
newsletter”.

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Task 1: Locate reviews and opinion pieces related to cybersecurity from the past 6 months.
For completing this task user click on the search button then type cybersecurity in the
search box which will provide some recent article and relevant information. Then user needs to
utilize the filter section from which he can alter the relevance key to Date which is set to
popularity by default. To achieve the desired goals three clicks is required and also takes 32.46s
to get the article. It takes lot time to ultimately achieve the result as the search button and filter
section is slow responsive. However, the process was smooth and effective as the search and
filter section is well-constructed.
Click on the search button →Type the 'cyber security' and enter→ Click on the 'filter' icon →
Select "Date" → Review results → Access article/s → Read article
Task 2: Subscribe to Microsoft newsletter.
In the Homepage, user needs to select newsletter from the top “MENU” section. After
scrolling down the Microsoft newsletter section is visible. After click on the subscribe button,
there is three option available as REGISTER, SIGN-UP WITH FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN and
USE YOUR ZDNET ACCOUNT. As user is new to the site he logged in with personal details to
access the newsletter. It takes estimated 59.36s with three clicks to complete the whole task.
There are several issues regarding this task. Firstly, the second section “SIGN-UP WITH
FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN” does not work. It is very ineffective and inconvenient. Secondly
there is no confirmation process available for new subscription. There is no security check as
email verification.

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Click on the newsletter button →click on the 'Subscribe Button' → Fill Email, country, password
click “REGISTER”→ check Inbox for confirmation.
Error: A big error is found while complete the second task as the “SIGN-UP WITH
FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN” section is not responsive. The hyperlinked for this two buttons are
not available. The non-availability of this section makes the subscribe process time consuming as
user needs to manually register to access the newsletter.
Figure 5: Non-responsive Facebook and LinkedIn button.
,
Conclusion:
After analyzing the usability and functionality of the website it can be concluded that the
interface of this site is well-constructed with an effective layout and Menu section. However, the
evaluation process is executed as planned in an effective manner. For evaluating the website

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several methodologies are utilized to support the analysis. The selected user is also reliable as he
complete the given task in professional manner. The user responses are very crucial and
important to understand the usability of the website. Lastly, the analysis of the website from the
perspective of the user have been discussed in this report. It has a pleasant interface with suitable
navigation bar, from where important and most viewed topics are characterized as Security,
Mobility, Storage, hardware so on. The interface is very professional and suitable compare to
other standard newsletters sites.

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Reference
Dickinger, A. and Stangl, B., 2013. Website performance and behavioral consequences: A
formative measurement approach. Journal of Business Research, 66(6), pp.771-777.
Lynch, K.R., Schwerha, D.J. and Johanson, G.A., 2013. Development of a weighted heuristic for
website evaluation for older adults. International Journal of Human-Computer
Interaction, 29(6), pp.404-418.
Ting, P.H., Wang, S.T., Bau, D.Y. and Chiang, M.L., 2013. Website evaluation of the top 100
hotels using advanced content analysis and eMICA model. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(3),
pp.284-293.
Zahran, D.I., Al-Nuaim, H.A., Rutter, M.J. and Benyon, D., 2014. A comparative approach to
web evaluation and website evaluation methods. International Journal of Public Information
Systems, 10(1).
Ziemba, P., Jankowski, J., Wątróbski, J. and Becker, J., 2015. Knowledge management in
website quality evaluation domain. In Computational collective intelligence (pp. 75-85).
Springer, Cham.