A Comparison of Six Website S Usability Levels

Website Usability

A comparison of six website’s usability levels

by Tim Severance

Introduction

All websites are different. Some are easier to navigate than others, and some load faster in the user’s browser than others do. In this document I am going to do a comparison of four websites, based on their usability. The four websites that I chose, which are all from companies that supply electronic parts to engineers, are:

·  Jameco

·  Mouser

·  Digi-Key

·  All-Electronics

Usability Criteria

I chose six different criteria for doing my comparisons of the websites. These comparisons are:

·  Is it easy to find direct part search?

·  Is the contact information easy to find?

·  Is the page visibly clean?

·  Does everything fit into the window?

·  Does the page load quickly?

·  Is the site easy to navigate?

Comparisons

The comparisons are shown on the final page in table 1. First, I will explain my comparisons on the part search. The Digi-Key website was the best site for ease of finding the part search text box because it is the biggest thing on the top area of the site. The others weren’t bad, except for All-Electronics which didn’t even have a part search field on the site.

Now, for the contact information, Jameco was the worst because you had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see the phone number. The others weren’t too bad, but All-Electronics was actually the best one for this criteria because they had the phone number in huge numbers on the left of the page.

Next, Digi-Key was the best page for visible cleanliness because the page was very small, and quite organized. There were hardly any advertisements even. All-Electronics was the next runner up, though it did contain a lot of extra text that it didn’t need. The other websites just contained too many advertisements or text.

Next, Digi-Key was the best page for everything fitting into the window. All-Electronics required the user to scroll down to see the whole page, which is very annoying. Mouser was next, but it contained just a little too much text to fit into the window neatly. Jameco was the worst with this criteria because the page was too long, and there was no information towards the bottom, just wasted space.

Next, none of the websites were very good at loading fast. They were all pretty graphic intensive. The worst two were Digi-Key because the whole page is graphic, and Jameco because of all the advertisements.

Next, Jameco and Mouser were the two best websites for ease of navigation. They both contained a common toolbar on each page, making it easy to find what you need. Digi-Key and All-Electronics both had inconsistencies in their pages.

What should be changed

Each of the websites that I critiqued could use a little work in my opinion. Shown below are some of the changes that I would suggest:

Jameco. This website would be better if they would put the companies contact information more towards the top. It could also use more efficient use of it’s space by getting rid of the empty space towards the bottom.

Mouser. This website could use a lot less text, and more use of the space for commonly used functions. All of the text made it hard for the user to find what they needed.

Digi-Key. This website would be better if it was a lot less graphic intensive, making it faster to load. The only other thing that it could use is a common toolbar for navigation on all of their pages.

All-Electronics. This website needs a search text box for their parts. It could also use a common toolbar for navigation.

Conclusion

All the websites that I have compared were good in some respect. But they all could also use a little work on improving some things.

Wri 227, May 15 2002 Website Usability Comparison 1

Table 1 - Website Comparisons

Criteria / Jameco / Mouser / Digikey / AllElectronics
Easy to find direct part search? / ·  Somewhat easy to find
·  Takes the eye a second to find the text box / ·  Somewhat easy to find
·  Takes the eye a while to find the text box / ·  Very easy to find
·  Huge text box at the top of page / ·  Terrible
·  You have to go to a different page to do a part search
Contact information easy to find? / ·  Terrible
·  You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find it / ·  Somewhat good
·  The numbers in the phone number are a bit small / ·  Very good
·  Phone number is in big numbers on top of page / ·  Very good
·  Phone number is in big numbers on the left
Visibly clean? Cluttered? / ·  Somewhat cluttered
·  Too many advertisements / ·  Somewhat cluttered
·  Page contains too much text / ·  Very nice and clean
·  Not too many ads, or too much text / ·  Just right
·  Not too many ads, or too much text
Does everything fit into window? / ·  Terrible
·  The page is way too long, and doesn’t have a definite bottom / ·  Not bad
·  The page could use a little less information / ·  Very good
·  Page is very small and to the point / ·  No
·  You have to scroll down to see the whole page
Does it load quickly? / ·  Terribly slow
·  There are too many advertisements to load / ·  Not bad
·  Page contains mostly text which loads faster than graphics / ·  Terribly slow
·  Too many graphics to load / ·  Not bad
·  Page contains mostly text which loads fast
Easy site navigation? / ·  Very good
·  Contains a common toolbar for all pages / ·  Very good
·  Contains a common toolbar for all pages / ·  Not great
·  The page changes style for every other page / ·  Not great
·  The page needs a common toolbar to all pages, or something consistent

Wri 227, May 15 2002 Website Usability Comparison 1