Introduction
Background
As a UX design intern at Merkle, I was tasked with conducting a heuristic evaluation for a client's two main websites. This is a client that Merkle had been working with for other services, and my team saw an opportunity to work on their website as an additional service to provide.
I evaluated the company's B2C and B2B websites based on the Nielsen Norman Group's 10 Usability Heuristics and created a presentation pointing out the issues I found.
My Role
I completed the evaluation myself, while receiving guidance and feedback from my team.
Timeline
3 weeks
Process
I went through the website section by section and carefully analyzed each part. I kept the user goals in mind and interacted with the different features throughout the website. On each page, I started by scanning for apparent issues and would then categorize the issue into a heuristic. I then analyzed the pages again while keeping each heuristic in mind to see if there was anything that was not as obvious the first time. I gave each issue a severity rating on a scale of 1-4, with 4 being the highest severity.
I made a full-length presentation that goes into detail on each issue, as well as a summarized version that was presented to the client which pointed out the main issues.
Findings
B2C E-commerce website
Main issues:
Two separate experiences
The website has two separate experiences where the navigation, product listing pages, product description pages, and shopping carts have different layouts and visual design. This can cause confusion and take the user longer to learn how the website works.
Consistency & Standards | Severity 3
Separate shopping carts
Not only do the shopping carts look different, there are two shopping carts that hold different items depending on which section of the website the items are from. It is difficult to figure out how to toggle between the two carts, which may result in customers not purchasing items they intended to buy.
Consistency & Standards | Severity 3
Navigation
There are 10 navigation-related issues.
Issues include:
• 4 different layouts on desktop for main menus and 2 on mobile
• Category overlap with how items are organized within navigation
• Some subcategories have headings while others do not
• Navigation pages separate from menus, with duplicate lists
Consistency & Standards, Aesthetic & Minimalist Design, Recognition Rather than Recall, Match Between System & Real World, Visibility of System Status | Severity 1-2
B2B Software service website
Main issues:
Must install Webex to view training videos
The website features a large selection of videos to watch, but many people do not have Webex. Having to install a software to view a video adds an extra step and will deter many users.
Consistency & Standards | Severity 3
Page not found
There is one page that loads when accessed from the navigation menu, but not when accessed from a link located on another page.
Consistency & Standards | Severity 4
Button not relevant
Some pages have a back button that leads to a specific page which is not the previous page the user came from. This can lead to users getting lost within the website.
User Control & Freedom | Severity 2
Conclusion
Doing this heuristic evaluation allowed me to utilize my analytical skills in assessing the website and thinking about how things should function.
Merkle is in the process of speaking with the client about making these changes to their website. Although I will not be part of this process due to my internship at Merkle concluding, I look forward to seeing how the project unfolds.
