INF 385E – Fall 2005

Design Critique Paper – Ebay

Thuy Nguyen


Introduction

eBay is one of the biggest shopping sites with millions of users. Although it has been around for only 10 years, eBay is ranked among the fastest-growing companies in the history with annual revenue of $3.27 billion (as of 2004). The website www.ebay.com is the biggest market place on the cyber world with millions of transactions per day (Wikipedia, 2005). The design effective of the website is therefore a critical factor that affects a large number of customers using the service. Surprisingly enough, it is no where close to optimal in terms of usability and information transparency compared to several other shopping sites on the internet. These inadequacies will be the topic of this paper.

The approach to this critique paper is to identify areas of problems that currently exist on eBay’s homepage, and then suggest solutions to these problems. Due to the author’s limited technical skills in graphic design, the focus of this paper is not to arrive at the final comprehensive graphical interface of the website. Instead, problems will be dissected and recommendations made locally.

Analyses

Problem 1: Two homepages

Depending on the frequency of visiting the website, the users might be presented with one of the two homepages of eBay (Figure 1 and Figure 2). When the users visit the site for the first time, homepage #1 will pop up. For subsequent visits, however, users are likely to be directed to homepage #2. From this point on, homepage #2 is the default homepage, and retrieval of homepage #1 is almost impossible! If the users revisit the site the next day, homepage #1 might come up. The purpose of homepage #1 is more for new users to get to know the site, while homepage # 1 serves better for users who are more familiar with the site and can comprehend the greater amount of detailed information presented. This procedure is not completely random., however, the existence of these two sites causes more confusions than it helps avoid them. It is highly likely that even first time users will see homepage #1 a few times, and when they are still finding their way around the site (maybe after one or two visits), homepage #1 is gone and cannot be retrieved (if they use the same computer). At this point, the users are presented with a very different page and get completely lost!

Solution to problem 1: Merging the two homepages

The fact that homepage #1 does not serve effectively the purpose it is supposed to do suggests that the need for this separate page might not be essential. Instead, there should be only one single homepage so that every time users visit the site, they have the feeling of being in the same “market” again. The features specifically dedicated for new users can still be incorporated in the “comprehensive” homepage, for example by clicking on a hot link or icon saying “tutorials for new user” or “orientation center”. That is, homepage #2 is what the users see first every time they go to www.ebay.com, and if they click on the link for first time users, they will be directed to homepage #1. For this reason, from problem 3 on, critique will be made exclusively to improve homepage #2 since this homepage seems to be the main site intended to be used by most users. For critique number 2,

Figure 1: eBay’s homepage #1

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Figure 2: eBay’s homepage #2

Problem 2: Inappropriate color scheme – important labels do not stand out

The use of colors on eBay’s homepage is not effective and somehow distracting to users. As can be seen in Figure 2, the main navigation bar has a very pale light blue color, while the rest of the page is filled with vibrant combinations of colors. The most important tabs therefore do not stand out as the most visible and “attractive”. The design of main navigating labels (Buy, Sell, My eBay, etc.) is also unappealing. Boxed letters somehow look boring and do not suggest they are important hot links. Consider the top navigation toolbar of www.amazon.com (Figure 3), for example. Although the color used is not strong or bright, the general impression is that it is very harmonic and the most important tabs stand out as important.

Figure 3: Top navigation bar of www.amazon.com

Another problem with the color scheme of eBay is that not only is it inappropriate, it also lacks consistency. Figure 2 show two different colors for the two “equivalent” tabs (tabs that are not sub categories of each other) with two different colors. This makes the site look messy and interfere with the visual cognitive process of users.

Solution to problem 2: Reduce the brightness of tabs and icons

below the top navigation bar

The most important tabs should be more vibrant in color (instead of no or very pale colors). Shaded and non-border tabs should also be used instead of boxed letters with white background. The tabs that are independent and parallel in terms of content and importance should not have different format and color to avoid increased cognitive demand for users.

Problem 3: User interface lack of emphasis on different audiences

The design implicitly differentiates these two types of users by having two separate websites dedicated to each type of users (although not exclusively), this has not been graphically presented in an effective manner. The interface should make both existing and potential users feel welcome and encouraged to explore the website. This shows the appreciation of the company providing the service to its customers. As can be seen in Figure 4, the “welcome message” to the audiences is not made to be eye-catching.

Figure 4: Very modest hot links to differentiate new and existing users

Solution to problem 3: Make the Register and Sign In tabs stand out

Figure 3 shows an example of how the existing text-only link to register could be replaced by a more appealing and eye-catching icon. The same thing could be done to the “sign-in” tab. Those features should stand out enough to get the immediate attention of users when they visit the site. This is to give a user-centered feeling and would lead to a more efficient use of site.

Another idea is to have a “learning center” for new users that has a complete typical demonstration of how an item is sold or bought, and explains all the roles of different companies within eBay. This could help the potential customer capture the whole picture as for how the site could benefit and meet their needs.

Problem 4: Overall site graphics

Figure 5a: Too much graphics at top right corner

Figure 5b: No content at bottom of page

The overall graphics of the site is imbalanced: at the top right corner, there might be too much (search box, sponsors’ logo, charity fund logo, live help, … - Figure 5a). Furthermore, within the proximity of the top navigation bar, some information is repeated (two links for “register”, two links for “help”). At the bottom of the page, however, the left navigation menu extends to long which creates empty space to the right (Figure 5b).

Solution to problem 4: Condensation of menu expansion

A quick fix of the excessively long left menu is to condense the content within the tabs Specialty Sites, Categories, More Ebay Sites, and Global Sites. For example, instead of listing all categories, maybe just half of those should be right on the front page, and a link to the full list could be provided. However, the ideal solution would be reorganizing the overall content of the whole site to arrive at a more generic improvement of site navigation and graphics in general.

Conclusions

This short paper has looked at fragmented problems that currently exist on the homepage of eBay and suggested potential solutions. These solutions are thought to be useful in improving the effectiveness of the interaction between users and the site. It is essential that this website need to be redesigned at some level based on the user-centered principles that emphasize on the mental and cognitive capabilities of users in information seeking and processing.

References

Amazon (2005). URL: http://www.amazon.com, date accessed: October 18, 2005

Ebay (2005). URL: http://www.ebay.com, date accessed: October 18, 2005

Wikipedia (2005). Ebay. URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebay, date accessed: October 18, 2005

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