Bryan Kingston

Week 2 Assignment:

My next assignment for week 2 is to present a website/page that demonstrates a poor execution of three of the 5 E’s in Usability and explain why they are so poor.

One might ask what is Web Usabiliy?

Website Usability is a qualitative attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use and addresses the relationship between the tools and their users.

The 5 E’s of Web Usability are:

• Effective
• Efficient
• Engaging
• Error Tolerant
• Easy to Learn 

The following is a diagram that displays the 5 E’s and shows how important they are for website effectiveness.

The 5 E's of Website Usability

After sitting down and having a good long think of what websites display poor usability i was unable to think of any off the top of my head. Then as the week went on I noticed that for some websites, I didnt like using because they may be Ineffective or Inefficient to the user for the purpose i was using them for.

A website in which people use very often is Bank of Irelands on-line Banking, www.bankofireland.ie.

Bank of Ireland Website

This site is visually unappealing and the navigation is seriously confusing and frustrating to the user. When one enters the site for the first time, you will see immediately how unattractive and scattered it is. The interface does Not Engage with the user and it offers nothing but confusion. Rather than clearly presenting its features, the homepage bombards the user with links to over 50 different pages and options and that’s not including the “quick links” drop down menu!! This is also not Easy to Learn as there are 5 different boxes to search from and knowing which one to search in is difficult to know if one has not used it before and because they are layed out all over the page. The font colors are inconsistent and the “Apply Online” buttons are also out of line. 

UCC Website

Another example is www.ucc.ie. When i was searching for a post-graduation course in UCC i found their website very Inefficient as it took me along time before i was able to find the course i was looking for. One must search through numerious pages to get to the required course and this is one of the main reasons why i found it so poor.  A search box is provided although this should be used as a last resort although this is also Ineffective as this didnt find the course i was searching for.

Revenue Website

And finally an example of a website from which i found to be Ineffective  in the past few days is www.revenue.ie. After receiving a letter in the post telling me that i could claim back tax on-line i was unable to complete my task and ended up sending away for it in the post which i also found utterly very frustrating. The site is very confusing and i found it very had to find what i was looking for. This site does not allow the intended users to accomplish their tasks in the best way possible.

In Conclusion, the three websites names above do not comply with at least one of the 5 E’s of Website Usability and they need to be looked at in the near future where they can improve on for the user. 

References:

www.bankofireland.ie
www.revenue.ie
www.ucc.ie