Design Evaluation 2: Navigation and Homepage Usability

(5 points)

WHAT
For this assignment, you will evaluate the navigation solution and the homepage design
for five websites of your choice.

WHY
This assignment’s purpose is to:
1. help you notice how other designers solve common navigation and homepage
usability solutions; and
2. help you evaluate solutions and decide what’s good and bad about them.

HOW
You will identify five websites that you wish to critique. Make sure that they different
websites, and that they are sites like you would be interested in designing. Pick some
sites from very large companies, some from very small companies. Pick some really
good ones, and some really bad ones. Look at several sites before you identify your five.
An important part of this project is for you to review a lot of sites and make some quick
decisions about their quality.

Once you’ve identified the five sites, evaluate each one of them. For each website:

1. Provide a screen shot of the homepage.

2. Explain and Evaluate the navigation solution. The table format may not work for
you – feel free to use any format you wish, as long as you explain and evaluate
each item.

For explanation, focus on describing the solution – HOW the site accomplishes
these tasks through design.

For evaluation, consider the following criteria:

 Is the solution clear and effective or is it confusing?
 Does the solution provide a pleasant user experience or is it annoying?
 Is this a solution you would like to use in one of your designs? Yes/No
Write some brief comments to evaluate the specific design solution, and then
assign it a grade. It’s OK if we do not agree with you – as long as you have good
reasons for your grade, you’re OK. All we ask is that you have good reasons
behind your opinion.

Consider including additional screenshots, numbering the issues that you see on the
screenshot, and referring to those numbers in the explanations. See an example at the
end of this assignment.
 EXPLANATION EVALUATION
HOW* does the site answer the questions:
_________________
*Look at the design techniques they used to communicate these answers. Describe
them. Use concepts from class in your description. Keep in mind that sites use more
than one technique to answer a question, or that one site element may answer several
questions. Then evaluate them using the criteria above
Navigation
Where am I?
 In relation to the
Internet
 In relation to the site –
what page
 In relation to the site –
what section
Where have I been?
Where can I go from here?
Homepage
What site it this?
What does this site do, what is
it about?
Who does this site belong to?
What organization/company?
What does the organization
do?
Is the tag line brief, Just write the tag line here.
descriptive, and catchy?
Where do I start? What are the
high-priority tasks on this site?
How big is this site? How is it
organized?
What is this site’s and
company’s character, as
conveyed through graphics?
What impression does it
make? How does it use
graphics to create that
impression? (i.e. reliable, or
playful, or informative, etc.)
 Grading Criteria:

An EXCELLENT design evaluation exceeds expectations. It is specific, well-thought out. It

points out specific elements of the interface, and provides specific explanations
(reasons) about why they are liked or disliked. It connects observations made about
these portfolios with concepts covered in class.– 4-5 points

A GOOD design evaluation meets expectations. It is similar to an excellent design

evaluations, but it has a few occasional errors – maybe some explanations are not
sufficiently specific, and/or it makes no connections to class concepts.- 2.5-4 points

A SO-SO design evaluation falls below expectations. It is vague, poorly structured, not
specific, and not well thought-out. - 0 – 2.5 points

Your design evaluation is:

Your points:

HOW TO SUBMIT THIS ASSIGNMENT:

1. One file, preferably editable Word
2. Please submit the assignment on Blackboard, on Monday, March 28, by class
time (4:30 pm).

See next page for an example of how you could do this assignment
Example:

Dr. V’s note: I am only filling out some of the fields (in blue), but you would have to
answer all the questions:

Repeat for each site.

EXPLANATION EVALUATION
HOW* does the site answer the questions:
_________________
*Look at the design techniques they used to communicate these answers. Describe
them. Use concepts from class in your description. Keep in mind that sites use more
than one technique to answer a question, or that one site element may answer several
questions. Then evaluate them using the criteria above
Navigation
Where am I?
 In relation to the Site name Sprouter at top + Clear, effective,
Internet left corner. Site name and visible, at expected
logo are the same thing. location.
- simple, not visually
interesting or creative

 In relation to the site –
what page
 In relation to the site –
what section
Where have I been?
Where can I go from here?
Homepage
What site it this?
What does this site do, what is
it about?
Who does this site belong to?
What organization/company?
What does the organization
do?
Is the tag line brief,
descriptive, and catchy?
Where do I start? What are the #2 and #3 on screen shot.
high-priority tasks on this site? Large text box and button
A-
You would have to look at
some of the deep pages to
answer these questions .
Make sure you do so.
Include additional
screenshots.
Site name at top left corner. Very clear and
effective, but not
creative A-
#1 on screen shot. Large text Very clear,
and tagline are clear and communicates site
descriptive. Make it clear purpose effectively.
that on this site you can ask Tag line is very
questions and get expert descriptive, but not
answers, and this is only for catchy.
startups. A-
Also, text on black bar at top
of screen describes clearly
what the site does.
Sprouter is the organization, There probably is an
but it is not clear who About page, but the
exactly is behind the site. link is not above the
fold. D
The organization and the site This is described very
seem to have the same clearly. The wording is
purpose: a Q&A forum about descriptive and clear,
startups. This is the size of the text
communicated through text draws attention to it
– both the wording and the effectively. A+
size of the text.
“Expert answers for your It is brief and
startup questions” descriptive, but not
catchy. B
A+ on main action. It is
communicated very
make it clear that is the main clearly through size
action. They use size to draw and placement on the
attention to that. site. There is no doubt
what the main action
 #3 on screen shot – the sign- is.
up options replace usual
navigation. They use B on the second most
placement on navbar to important action. It is
communicate that is an communicated clearly,
important action to take. but the drawback is
that it frustrates user
expectation that there
will be a navbar at that
location.
How big is this site? How is it
organized?
What is this site’s and
company’s character, as
conveyed through graphics?
What impression does it
make? How does it use
graphics to create that
impression? (i.e. reliable, or
playful, or informative, etc.)