Free Essay

Usability

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By specialj8986
Words 1044
Pages 5
Design Process and Evaluation
• Understand and meet user expectations- there is no process to understand what the user experience is. They may have collected random samples and had them use the website but it would be more efficient to prompt the user to take a random survey during or after they have used the website. They may have this but I was never prompted to take a survey. It would be nice to have an entire section or link to identify problems or make recommendations.
• Use Parallel design- although the design of the website is efficient (doesn’t have any flash or glamour) it is a little bland. It has a very “government website” feel to it. If they took multiple website designers opinions and ended up with this product, they chose the wrong website designers. The site could appeal to more users by choosing a more modern layout and color scheme. This site feels like it was created on Windows 95.
Optimizing the User Experience
• Format the information for reading and printing- when attempting to print a page about one of the nursing homes in my area, I found that there was a lot of fluff in the page. The title bar was far too big, they had the “information” symbol in the printed copy (not needed), hyperlinks where still in the printed copy, and pages were split right in the middle of certain charts. A more universal printing layout would be more ideal for this site.
• Provide Assistance to Users- when accessing the website for the first time, I was not prompted to “start here” or given an option to map out the website. An animation or pop-up prompting me to start here or take a tour would be nice.
The Home Page
• Create a Positive first impression of your website- the homepage looks very similar to the rest of the site. I certainly wouldn’t say that it looks like a homepage. Opening this page in a different tab without the medicare.gov logo at the top would give it a more individualistic feel and make it seem like it has it’s own home page.
• Communicate the Websites Values and Purpose- there is no value or purpose stated in the home page. Unless they think their value or purpose is “Find a Nursing home”. A mission or value statement at the top would be ideal for this site. I get nothing about the purpose of the site upon entering it.
Page Layout
• Place important items top center- the most important item on this site is the tool bar to enter your “zip code, city, or state” and it is in the middle, left justified. This could be top center justified for best results.
Navigation
• Provide Navigation Options- generally when you are on a page and you want to navigate back to the home page, you can click the title header. The title header on this page is Medicare.gov and takes you back to the Medicare home page. The nursing home compare home is a tab that you can select but it should be its own site. This kind of frustrated me because once I got back to the Medicare.gov page, it was very hard to navigate myself back to the nursing home compare website. Like I said before, this page should have it’s own individual site rather than being an appendage to the medicare.gov site. There is a little breadcrumb trail link that says “home” but it can be easily overlooked.
• Place Primary Navigation Menus on the left panel- there are no navigation menus on the left panel. They are all under the title header. Provide a pop out menu of the left
• Use Site Maps- No site map available. Have a site map.
Links
• Link to related content- I visited several nursing homes on the nursing home compare site and none of them had external links to individual nursing home websites. If they did, they didn’t make them easy to find or very apparent. Have an apparent link to each individual nursing home.
Text Appearance
• Use attention attracting features when appropriate- there are no attention attracting feature. They website is very bland. Have a little more pop and showmanship to the site.
Screen Based Controls
• Place cursor in first data entry field- when first accessing the home page of nursing home compare, the cursor should automatically be placed in the “Location” field. Upon arriving at the site the cursor is not placed anywhere. You have to manually click in the location box.
Graphics, images, and multimedia
• Include Logos- No logos are used on the website at all. This could be a very attractive feature this site is missing out on. They could include the logo of each individual nursing home beside the name of each one that populates. If Medicare has a logo they could include it in the title header.
• Introduce Animation- No animation is used on this site. They could have a How-To on how to use the site or if a nursing home has a virtual tour they could include a link to the animation for that.
• Include Actual Data with Data Graphics- the only data that uses any kind of graphic is the star rating system. They rest of the data has no kind of graphic associated with it. It only has numbers.
Content Organization
• Format information for multiple audiences- there is no option for any other language. There is no option to choose if you are a person looking for information for a relative or if you are a skilled profession looking for information for a referral. Appealing to a wider audience (such as the Hispanic culture) would make this site more user-friendly.
Usability testing
• Solicit test participants comments- No option to comment or rate each individual nursing home. User comments are a growing trend on helping people determine what is suited best for them. Sites such as yelp or the comments on products on amazon help users. This would be beneficial for this site. Having an user review portion available would help more people gain a wider understanding about which place works best for them.
• Apply Automatic Evaluation Methods- No such thing was visible to me on this site.

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