- Julieth Fajardo
Exito website Heuristic Evaluation
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Heuristic Evaluation
Score values are going to be 0 no problem to 4 catastrophe intervention
1. Visibility of system status
Overload of system status all over the website
Misinformation of the current status is not easy to understand where the user is
COVID information is not easy to find
Overload of promos and banners that distracts the user from relevant contents like “Tuesday promo”
Score: 3 Major usability problem (important to fix should be given high priority)
2. Match between system and the real world
They use words and phrases that are used by the Colombian families in their daily lives
Inviting language to browse more deep into each category.
Score: 0 no usability problem
3. User control and freedom
Feels restricted after selecting a category there is not an easy way to go back to the home page
Freedom to easily remove or add items from the cart
Score: 2 Minor usability problems should be given low priority. There are some restrictions on navigating through your shopping task but it is not urgent.
4. Consistency and standards
There is not really understanding of what is the better discount, red or blue!
Inconsistency on button hierarchy and styles
They explore the same concept in really different takes, making feel confused and out place
Score: 4 Usability catastrophe. There are no clear standards, we found a repetition of some buttons/ctas, use of colors, shape for buttons, an overload of use of images and extra elements, but the major problem is no real consistency throughout the whole website. Most of the time you feel on different websites at once.
5. Error Prevention
There is no error prevention action when typing while looking for an item.
It advised me when I need to re-enter the information or if it is missing
Score: 2 Minor usability problems should be given low priority.
6. Flexibility and efficiency of use
For frequent users, the website autosave your selected pick up location
There are 3 different ways to find the same product
Score: 1 cosmetics issue. Having the information autosaved saves the user time nor having to re-enter it. However, the different ways to look for an object are not easy to find do to the overall crowdedness of the website.
7. Aesthetic and minimalist design
Overlapping of information like offers and where to find different items
Irrelevant information that doesn’t match the title description
Overlook is overload with different images, different fonts, different colors that mean the same
Images take over the website, putting essential information in the second level
Section alignment is off, there are a lot of different size sections that are confusing to the hierarchy.
Score: 4 The product overlaps all the information, there is no room to breathe. The lack of white space is tiring for the user and makes the navigation very confusing if the user doesn’t know what's looking for.
8. Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors
Easy language when making a mistake
Clear state when making an error
Score: 1 Cosmetic problem only, mostly connected to heuristic 8
9. Help and documentation
Easy to provide documentation, but you can navigate without providing any personal information
To add items to the cart you need to select whether the user wants to pick up or deliver, and the system helps you populate the pick-up location.
Additional help information is found at the bottom of the website
Score: 0 There is no problem, the website has enough information to guide the user if it is needed. In addition, the customer service chat is fast and really useful.
Measure the overall extent to which the digital product you’ve selected adheres to or violates the chosen heuristic.
The overall usability score is 3 because 56% of the Heuristics evaluators are in the major to catastrophe usability range, most of these evaluators have frequency occurrence through the whole website and problem persist in different ways in the overall website, but the user had found a way to overcome the problem.
With this in mind, Exito website has major usability issues that need to be given high priority.
This would alleviate the user's experience through the task of buying a product, which is the main purpose of the website.
Suggest Improvements
Based on the heuristic evaluation there are a few immediate improvements that would alleviate the pain points of the user experience:
Visibility of System Status
Set a hierarchy between the products, brands, and sales presented on the home page, so that the user can easily get a glance at the products and can easily scan what they are looking for.
Consistency and Standards
Set one defined style throughout the entire website will help the user feel more familiarized with the content.
Set standard button styles will help the user understand navigate through the website easily
Display discounts and sales with the same style so that the users understand how they are saving and how they are accumulating points from the reward system set in place.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Organize items by category would help the user understand where they are on the website at all times
Dismiss irrelevant information from the home page will prevent the user to get lost in the process of a task.
Improve content hierarchy by placing the headings first, description content of the product alongside the pictures, maintaining the same style and alignment through the different categories.