Introduction
Website Description
IKEA
Rooms To Go
Pottery Barn
Methodology
Site Related Tasks
Data and Results
Discussion
Summary
References
Related Links
Appendix A: Pre-Test Questionnaire
Appendix B: P ost
-Test Questionnaire
Author Information
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The application of technology-based online services has grown and web retail services rising rapidly in recent years since the Internet has been used as a channel of information and commerce.
As predicted by several authors, number of individuals buying online products and services continues to increase (Hansen, 2008). What leads a buyer to shop online is a matter that has evoked a lot of interest (Sangeeta, et al., 2008) emphasized by success and the failure of some e-retailers. Marketer often encounters the difficulty of understanding the dynamics of consumer behavior, which this lays the need for an analysis.
Conducting a usability test is one of the efforts to understand the prospective customers and the users. The more well-designed, the research will gather more accurate data and get more reliable results. Rubin and Chisnell (2008) defined the word usability as the user can do what he or she wants to do the way he or she expects to be able to do it, without hindrance, hesitation, or questions.
The purpose of this report is to explore three popular furniture-shopping sites and evaluate their usability. The following are the research questions:
●
How easily and successfully do users register for the site?
● How easily and successfully do users find the products or information they are looking for?
● What are the major design features of sites related to complete the tasks and increase the usability?
Two users will participate in this research and the researcher will observe the way that the users navigate through and use the websites. They will be asked to complete three different tasks and once they finish the tasks, they will be given a survey questionnaire about their experience.
The following is those three websites:
A. IKEA (http://www.ikea.com)
B. Rooms To Go (http://www.roomstogo.com)
C. Pottery Barn (http://www.potterybarn.com)
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A. IKEA ( http://www.ikea.com
)
The IKEA story begins in 1926 when founder Ingvar Kamprad is born in Småland in southern Sweden. He is raised on 'Elmtaryd', a farm near the small village of Agunnaryd.
Even as a young boy Ingvar knows he wants to develop a business.
The IKEA product range focuses on good design and function at a low price. It offers home furnishing solutions for every room in the home. It has something for the romantic at heart, the minimalist and everyone in between. It is co-ordinated so that no matter which style you prefer our designers and product developers work hard to ensure that our products meet your day-to-day needs and eliminates the unnecessary. In 2000’s the company expands into even more markets such as Japan and Russia. Everything for the bedroom and kitchen is explored and presented in co-ordinated furnishing solutions. This period also sees the successes of several partnerships regarding social and environmental projects.
Fig. 1 Screenshot of the introductory page
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Fig. 2 Screenshot of living room storage page
B. Rooms To Go ( http://www.roomstogo.com
)
Rooms To Go opened its first set of doors in 1991, and they insists that the company grown into America's #1 independent furniture company with the nation's largest furniture inventory. Along with the creation of this great furniture company, an exciting and innovative way to shop furniture was born. They are constantly updating their inventory, offering the latest looks in home furniture fashions at great prices.
Rooms To Go introduced the concept of displaying and packaging furniture in complete room settings. Their designers coordinate each room's colors, fabrics and accessories to the last detail, so customers do not have to. This approach affords customers a simplified shopping experience and increased savings when buying an entire room. It is also known with the customers discover exclusive, stylish, quality furniture
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they can afford. They sale associates create the hassle free, comfortable environment customers enjoy in our showrooms.
Fig. 3 Screenshot of the introductory page
Fig. 4 Screenshot of living room sofas page
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C. Pottery Barn( http://www.potterybarn.com
)
Pottery Barn was built on the idea that home furnishings should be exceptional in comfort, quality, style and value. From the bedroom to the bath, the kitchen to the home office, the entryway to the backyard, they have everything you need to create your dream home. It’s design studio specialists are well known to be trained to provide expert decorating and entertaining advice in their stores, and the web via email and live chat.
Online, they also offer an extensive archive filled with hundreds of exclusive articles, videos, decorating tools and their custom room planner. And they are active in staying connected to social media as the perfect way to share inspiring photos, easy, decorating and entertaining tips, favorite recipes and exclusive sales information. They continue to challenge their selves to stay connected and share relevant information that will inspire every day through the blog and on Facevook and Youtube.
Fig. 5 Screenshot of the introductory page
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Fig. 6 Screenshot of living room chairs page
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Research Questions
The purpose of this report is to explore three popular furniture-shopping sites and evaluate their usability. The following are the research questions:
●
How easily and successfully do users register for the site?
●
How easily and successfully do users find the products or information they are looking for?
●
What are the major design features of sites related to complete the tasks and increase the usability?
Research Design
The study was conducted followed by Rubin and Chrisnell(2008) usability testing and Nielson Norman Group model(2000). The test included three types of tasks: first impressions, specific tasks, and open-ended tasks.
Table 1 . Website sequence for participants
Participant a
Website sequence
A, B, C* b
* A: Ikea; B: Rooms to go; C: Pottery barn
Participants
C, B, A
The participants in this study are all adults (age 27- 31). They graduate from the university and got a job in Austin, TX. They use the Internet every day for their work and free time. And they accustomed to the Internet shopping so they do not have any difficulty in online shopping. All participants volunteered to participate in the usability testing.
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Table 2 . Results of the Demographic Questionnaire
Participant Age Gender Computer Daily Internet using skill using time(excluding work or study)
Internet using experience a 26 Female advanced 2.5hrs Searching information or purchasing clothes from online. b 25 Male advanced 3hrs Searching information, blogging or watching youtube videos.
Instruments
Based on the book from Rubin and Chisnell (2008), the following instruments are used to conduct the study:

Pre-test questionnaire: participants general demographics, Internet experience

Post-test questionnaire: gathering feedback from the participants on the design of the websites
A pre-test questionnaire (see appendix) was developed according to Rubin and
Chisnell (2008). The pre-test questionnaire assessed participants’ demographics, computer experience and internet experience. Questions related to the Internet using time per a day and the participants’ experience for work and their private purposes.
A post-test questionnaire (see appendix) used in this study was also developed according to Nielsen et al. (2000). Its primary purpose was to gather feedback from the participants on the design of the websites they had tested. The questions tried to analyse the three aspects of design such as information, interaction and interface design.
Five-scale likert was used.
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The following tasks were given to the participants. The tasks were consisted of three parts, exploration, specific, and open-ended task.
Table 3 . Task overview
Furniture Shopping Websites
Task IKEA Rooms To Go Pottery Barn
Exploration Each participant given five minutes to freely browse each site followed by a few brief questions.
Specific Task 2-1. Each participant was given the following scenario and try to solve the task with in ten minutes:
“You want a new leather sofa that fits three people in your living room.
Your budget is $800.00. Find a sofa that suits your taste and order it.”
Open-Ended Please buy a chair to decorate your living room. You can choose any design and color. No budget limitation and ten minutes allowed.
Task 1: Exploration
The participants are allowed to explore the website for the first five minutes. Then they were asked to give their first impressions of the site.
The following are those questions the participants were asked:

What does this site have?

Who is this site for?

At first glance, does it appear that this site would have things you might want or need?
Task 2: Specific Tasks
The goal of this task is asking the participants to find a furniture based on some specific requirements, in order to understand how they navigating through the site. The task was designed to complete within ten minutes.
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Task 3: Open-Ended Tasks
For the open-ended tasks, freedom was given to the participants in order to see how they interacted with the sites. The task was designed to complete within ten minutes.
The post-test questionnaire consisted of 12 questions. Those 9 of the questions used a
5-likert scale. The number 1 represented very dissatisfied and 5 represented very satisfied with the sentence. The questions 1 through 3 were about the website’s information design, the questions 4 through 6 were about interface design and the questions 7 through 9 were about the interaction design. The questions 10 through 12 were about the first impression of the website and it was given as an open question- answer. The following are the result of participant post-questionnaire.
Based on the result of post-questionnaire, for both of the information and interaction design, IKEA website received the highest score and Pottery Barn was the lowest. IKEA also ranked on the top of the list in the interface design, however, this time Rooms To Go was the lowest in the category.
Table 4 . The result of post-questionnaire
IKEA Rooms to Go Pottery Barn
Information 4.6
a
5.0
b
5.0
5.0
5.0
4.6
4.0
5.0
4.0
4.0
3.0
4.6
5.0
3.0
4.6
3.3
4.0
4.0
Interface
Interaction a : Participant a b : Participant b
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Table 5 . The average response from questionnaire(questions 1~9)
IKEA Rooms to Go Pottery Barn
Information c 4.8
4.5 4.0
Interface c 5.0 4.0 3.9
Interaction e 4.8 3.8 4.0 c : Information includes items 1,2, and 3 of the questionnaire d : Interface includes items 4, 5, and 6. e : Interaction includes items 7,8, and 9.
A. IKEA
The participants were asked to explore the website for the first five minutes. Then they shared their first impressions of the site. Participant a reported that she liked the main image of the website. She clicked one of the menu bar on the top of the page and looked though the products. She said overall the website was easy to naviate.
Participant b responded that by the first image of dining room and living room, he was easily able to get the purpose of the image. Especially he is from Asia where the company does not have any store so he said he never heard of the website. From his response, the website was quite easy to deliver their brand image and purpose.
In the second task to buy a specific leather sofa within the budget, participant a indicated the menu bar on the top of the page was easy to understand and helpful to find the product with the given condition. It took eight minutes to choose the sofa and proceed to check out.
Participant b said that the information on the website was easy to find because it classified the product with each place of the house. However, until he click one of the menu, he was not able to know the sub-menus.
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Divided menu bar by a place of house.
Fig 7 . Main menu bar in IKEA
For the third open-ended task, participant a navigated the website by clicking each of the menu and looking around the product she wants to buy. She searched both menus of living room and bedroom. She also used the search box to choose the color she wanted. She said, the navigation tool and the search box were convenient to use since the website has many products in the category.
Participant b used a shopping cart feature to navigate the website. He picked four chairs and put them into the cart while he was navigating the website, then he came back to view my cart menu and choose one of them.
You can browse with a search box.
You can enlarge the image when you hover the mouse curser.
Fig 8.
Search filter and enlarged image with specific description
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B. Rooms To Go
The common first impression of the website was about its page size. Since it did not use the full size of the page, there were margins both of the side. Participant a said the light blue color for the margins were not compatible with the brand image. In addition, participant b wondered why the site allowed the margins. He indicated the margins make him feel some of the products are out-of- stock and there are not many options to choose.
The website have some margins
in both sides.
Fig 9.
Extra margins in both sides
For the second task, participant a reported she like the menu bar had easy access to the sub-menu. Because when she hover the mouse curser to the top menu, it showed the sub-menus and listed the categories of their products. She actually finished the task in six minutes that is two minutes earlier compare to the IKEA website. Participant b also used the shopping cart and succeed to complete the task. They especially liked the search box with price filter, so that they could manage the budget.
When you hover your mouse, the website will show you the sub-menus.
Fig 10.
Opening sub-menus
The third task, both of the participants were able to complete the task within the given time. They explored the bedrooms, living rooms and dining rooms menus and used
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the filter for the style and collection of the chairs. Especially participant b reported that he liked a very specific description of the product and pictures to show the dimension.
C. Pottery Barn
The first impression on the Pottery Barn website was very interesting. Two participants came up with the opposite response. Participant a showed a favor of it main image and its layout which showed all the sub-menus on the left side. However, participant b replied that there was too much information in the front page, so it was somewhat distracting when he navigates the website.
For the second task, participant a could finish the task but it took almost ten minutes which left only twenty seconds to the given time. When the researcher asked the reason why it took so long compare to the previous two websites, she answered that the website suggested some filters of price, color, length or fabric. However, it does not include a search filter of which material was used. Participant b navigated the website and choose the leather sofa with their pictures. Later he complained that he might not able to look through all of the leather sofa and it was not efficient.
The website showed the menu in the left side.
Fig 11 . Sub-menus in the main page
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For the third task, participant a and b used the search box since the website had a lot more variation on their products compare to the previous two websites. Even though the participant b started his usability test with this website, he also typed a chair in the search box. However, once the participant a narrow her search, she satisfied the specific information of the website. She can check the enlarged fabric images, size or shipping info. Participant b left a comment on its pictures which show how those chairs suit in the real-like room environment. Since he does not have much knowledge in furniture or interior design, he said most of the time he did not know which one would be good in his room. However, when the website gave him an example to display the chair, he was able to imagine the look in his room.
For information design, IKEA received the highest score. Both of the participants replied that it was easy to navigate and to find the information on the website. There was a search box tool on the upper right side also a search filter by different categories. These tools used to enhance the navigation and searching on the web. Those three websites have almost the same information to deliver. However, the ways they layout the contents and bring up the information were different and the difference resulted diverse response. The users are expecting well-designed information, so that they do not need to get lost on the web or to take a lot of time to find the information they needed. This might be possible with the help of a supporting tool. In my opinion, those search box or filters are helping the users to deal with the amount of information in their cognitive load. So that way, the user are not overwhelmed by the graphics, numbers or texts. Even shopping is not related to learning, the basic operation of our brain would work just like the same.
For interface design, IKEA also received the highest score and the lowest was Pottery
Barn. Pottery Barn did not score high compare to the other websites. Common complains on their websites were the speed of time to load the page. Since both of the webpages had many images and there were too many sub-menus in the main page, this could lead the dissatisfaction. One of the participants did not satisfy the background color of Rooms To
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Go website. Compare to the one with IKEA, Pottery Barn’s main menus were not short to recognize right away. IKEA classified the menu with the purpose of the house such as kitchen, living room or dining room. However, Pottery Barn consisted the menu interface with the category such as furniture, outdoor or bedding. For the convenience to explore the shopping website, to deliver the idea with easy to access and easy to recognize would be the most important factor to enhance the quality of interface the design.
For interaction design, both of the participants liked the feature to add the product to cart features. While they navigate the website, if they found anything they want to buy or interested in they could add the product to their shopping cart. Once they finished the overall navigating, then they could go back to the shopping cart and made the final decision to check out. Participant b chose this feature as one of the best part he liked the most. He explained that it was much convenient to look for the product to suit his needs because he did not need to write the information on the memo or printed out to somewhere else. In addition, all of the participants liked the embedded design strategy to communicate with a customer service representative with a chatting program. The program from IKEA was ran by previously saved data bank with frequent questions and answers. Even though it was not available to talk to a real person, it still helped the users to solve some of their problems. And since those problems were mainly related to informative aspect, so that the problems were easily solved.
To analyze the factors that can affect and have an influence on the usability, an usability test was conducted for two participants. The test was mainly focused on three different categories of design- information, interface and interaction. Based on the result of post-questionnaire, for both of the information and interaction design, IKEA website received the highest score and Pottery Barn was the lowest. IKEA also ranked on the top of the list in the interface design, however, this time Rooms To Go was the lowest in the category. Based on the testing result, the proposed design principles and strategies are listed by the order of Information, Interaction, and Interaction designs.
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Information
1.
Only the relevant and reliable information should be appeared in the site.
2.
Search box or filter is useful to narrow the searching information.
3.
Too much graphics and too long texts are overwhelming the users.
Interface
1.
The texts on menu or button should be easy to read and scanning.
2.
The size of the each page should be considered to fit a display.
3.
Color goes with the purpose of the website of the brand image should considered to deliver the message efficiently.
Interaction
1.
Instance feedback or supporting system would greatly enhance the user satisfaction.
2.
Saving some of the selected information will be helpful on the efficiency.
3.
Adding customer reviews or connecting to other social media promotes an active interaction on the website.
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Hansen, T. (2008). Consumer values, the theory of planned behavior and online grocery shopping. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32 , 128–137.
Nielsen, J., Snyder, C., Molich, R., and Farrell, S. (2000). E-Commerce User
Experience: Methodology.
Nielson Norman Group
Weinschenk, S. M. (2011). 100 Things: every designer needs to know about people.
Newriders.
http:// www.ikea.com/us http://www.roomstogo.com/ http://www.potterybarn.com/
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Pre-Test Questionnaires
Demographic
Gender: Male Female
Your age: 16 – 20 21 – 25 26 – 30 31 – 35 36 – 40 over 40
What is your occupation? _________________________________________________
Computer Usage
How advanced do you consider your computing skills? __________________________
How much time do you spending using the Internet? ___________________________
(Please exclude work or study)
What kind of sites do you visit the most? _________________________________
Prior Online Shopping Experience
Have you ever purchased furniture in online? Yes No
If yes, what sites have you used? _________________________________ ____________
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Post-Test Questionnaires
User ID: ________________ Date: ________________ Tested website: ________________
Please rate your level of agreement with the following aspects for
__________________________ website by circling the appropriate number.
Strongly dissatisfied
Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied Strongly satisfied
First Impression on the Website
How easily and successfully did you register for the site?
How easily and successfully did you find the products or information they are looking for?
How efficiently did the site was designed to deliver their purpose?
Site Feedback
It was easy to find the information.
All of the information was relevant and correct.
The amount of information was appropriate.
The site was visually appealing and well designed (color or graphics).
The page loading times were satisfactory.
The site was well-designed to easily purchase the product.
The product image display in the site was efficiently organized.
I knew where I was on the site at all times.
I enjoyed searching for products on this site.
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Mihyun Lim is a Ph.D student in Learning Technologies program at the University of Texas at Austin. This paper is written for the course EDC385G Designs and Strategies for New Media in 2012 Fall semester.
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