Lisa C

  Amazon Usability Heuristics #9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors Usability Rating: 0 I have not yet had an issue with Amazon's ordering process. Like most marketplace website, they show status of items. I like that it is easy to track the package. It was pretty simple for me to cancel an order.  #8: Aesthetic and minimalist design Usability Rating: 1  I have mixed feeling about Amazon's aesthetic. Amazon does a great job at displaying a lot of items, and it is almost convincing to buy more things which is its intended purpose: to sell to consumer. With the plethora of items, the site does great with white-spacing. Personally though, the amount of whitespace and words tired my eyes out.  #7: Flexibility and efficiency of use Usability Rating: 2 Having the feature of a sidebar to show the items you currently have in the cart while you search is useful but in this case it is a bit redundant at least from my experience (discussed also below on #...

 Mercer Usability Heuristics #10: Help and documentation Usability Rating: 2 The contact area is insufficient with information. Additional contact information such as emails and a phone number would be proper at least in the homepage. These contact info can be found if  the user know what they are looking for but from a perspective of a clueless user it would be tedious to search. #7: Flexibility and efficiency of use Usability Rating: 0 The drop bar will follows you as you are scrolling, and I found that efficient because it lets me just navigate to the next section if I needed to. #8: Aesthetic and minimalist design Usability Rating: 1 Mercer did well with keeping a minimalistic visual design, but its issue lie with too much white space. The content is very spread out which causes the page to be very elongated. To optimize the minimalist aspect of the design I would personally condense those white spaces to create a shorter range.  #4: Consistency and standards Usabilit...

  Discord Usability Heuristics #1: Visibility of system status Usability Rating: 2 When the user is making chances, a sign will pop up to let the user know that they are about to make a change. I like that Discord will give you easy access to your friends list and pending people. However, I do not like that private message groups will notify everyone that someone left the group. I would love to leave a dm group with grace and it not be announced to everyone.  #2: Match between system and the real world Usability Rating: 0 #3: User control and freedom Usability Rating: 0 Discord is very versatile. It is ranked one of my favorites app/website for the fact that is very customizable. It very personal for the reason that it gives the owner of a server dictatorial power. Owners can give permission to selective users and give them roles. Discord also have bots or mods that can be added into a server to make the server more appealing and thematic. It is also very organized. Multiple s...

  Structures, Research, Development Organization Structures A usability factor is efficiency. A website's organization is just as important as its resourcefulness. It will determine how easily a user can navigate. Three main organizational structure are hierarchical, sequential, and matrix. Hierarchical Most common architecture structure Structure: Top-Down Approach (Broader to specific) Example: Amazon, Wells Fargo Sequential  Step-by-step that follows a specific path Structure: Chronological Example: Checking out, creating an account Matrix User has independency and chooses their own path   Structure: Database Example: Galileo, Wikipedia Sustainable structures should have the ability to insert new information. Structures should allow the user to quickly get to their material and not be created in a way that forces the user to dig for the information.  Project Development Things to consider when developing a project is understanding the targeted de...

  Twitch Heuristics User control and freedom Rating: 2 A video and audio from the homepage automatically plays when you first enter the website. Features like this can be alarming and unpleasant. Some sort of warning should at least be warranted. Error prevention Rating: 3 I would have rated the error prevention as a zero as it is clear the Twitch will notify the user about an error, but the issue with this error message is related to privacy. Although I like the fact that it tells exactly which part of the information is incorrect, above was a random username I have typed and if I was lucky enough I could have gotten the password right. Twitch login will also verify if a username exists which, again, is an issue.   Flexibility and efficiency of use Rating: 2 For any streaming/video sites, having a miniplayer feature is desirable because it allows the user to navigate without having to close the video or open another tab. The only problem I have with Twitch's miniplayer i...

YouTube Heuristics #1: Visibility of system status Rating: 0 Users do not have to guess the progress of an action they made. If the user downloads a video from YouTube, there is a progress bar and the percentage of completeness of the video. #2: Match between system and the real world Rating: 0 The icon for YouTube is simple and recognizable. #3: User control and freedom Rating: 0 The user can easily remove a video or add a video to their queue. There are effective routes for the user to take such as going to previous video or skipping to the next video. YouTube also allows the user to manipulate the speed of a video and by using the number key, to go to a specific time stamp of the video. #4: Consistency and standards Rating: 0 YouTube is consistent throughout its site. The layout is the same regardless of content. #5: Error prevention Rating: 0 The user will be notified if any error has occurred or if an action is not permitted. #6: Recognition r...