Importance of Incorporating Fundamental Usability with Social & Trust Elements for E- Commerce Website Ashok Sivaji, Muhammad Fahmi Mazlan, Shi Tzuaan Soo Product Quality & Reliability Engineering, MIMOS Berhad Azween Abdullah, Computer & Information Sciences, Alan G. Downe, Management & Humanities Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 07 June2011 testlab@mimos.my 2010 MIMOS Berhad. All Rights Reserved. Testing Excellence
Background What is usability? The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments. (ISO 9241 definition) What is software testing? Software Testing is an process of executing a program or a software with the intent of finding errors, validating against requirements. Scope? E-Commerce Websites ( 2 )
Problem Statement According to usability expert Nielsen [2], user success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, with most sites achieving compliance with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Hence, it is important to improve website usability as it can significantly increase revenue, loyalty and survival. ( 3 )
Objective 1. To understand factors impacting E-Commerce website design a. Fundamental usability guidelines b. Social Elements c. Trust Elements 2. To validate the impact of the factors influencing website by comparing 4 E-Commerce websites a. Heuristically b. Empirically Trust Social Fundamental ( 4 )
Literature Review Gestalt theory "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" Fitts s Law Affordance Trust Transference from Shopping Mall(offline shopping) to E-Commerce (online shopping) Social Presence Online and offline communication Multiple Language Communication ( 5 )
Literature Review Gestalt theory "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts 10 distinct objects appears as single unit because all of the shapes have similarity Small Triangle 6 Large Triangle 3 Eagle Image Unity occurs because the triangular shapes at the bottom of the eagle symbol look similar to the shapes that form the sunburst. ( 6 )
Literature Review Fitts s Law A model of human movement in humancomputer interaction and ergonomics which predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to and the size of the target. ( 7 )
Literature Review Affordance Design quality of an object that suggests how it should be used ( 8 )
Literature Review Trust Transference A recent survey found that 35% of Malaysian respondents rated payment security as the most important factor when transacting online [3]. ( 9 )
Literature Review Social Presence According to Hassanein and Head [10], social presence has a positive impact on perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment of an e- commerce website. ( 10 )
Literature Review Online and Offline communication Consumers will use multiple contact channels if they are present. ( 11 )
Literature Review Multiple Language Communication For certain countries such as Malaysia, in which English is not the first language and there are multiethnic and multi language used accordingly, it is crucial to consider internationalizing the interface to meet a larger user group. ( 12 )
Summary of Literature Review Trust Fundamental Social Trust Social Gestalt Networking Fundamental Fitts Law Presence Affordance Communication Language ( 13 )
Methodology: Heuristic Evaluation The HE assessed compliance of each of the four websites to fundamental heuristics affordance number of language options online and offline communication Social social network - strength of the followers presence Trust payment mode offered, which could reflect the trust element ( 14 )
Results: Heuristic Evaluation Site B Site D Site A,B Site A Site B ( 15 )
Methodology Empirically UET The user experience test consists of setting up 3 basic tasks that involves both a B2C user (client) and B2B user (merchant) This consists of both performance and subjective ratings via questionnaire The tasks are a registration task (B2C) a purchase task (B2C) the task of setting up online business as a merchant (B2B) ( 16 )
Methodology Empirically UET Empirically UET Satisfaction Star Rating User experience test was conducted to measure ease of use usefulness trust and enjoyment while performing certain tasks on four of the websites. ( 17 )
Results: User Experience Test Site B Site A Site C ( 18 )
Methodology Empirically Eye Tracking The objective is to detect the impact of having social presence in the advertisement. Comparing an advertisement that promotes a product from two different vendors using eye tracking. The Tobii T60 eye tracker was used. In the study 20 participants, were given about 10 seconds to view both advertisement No Social Presence Social Presence ( 19 )
Results: Eye Tracking Heat map shows that users fixation are highly on the image with Social Presence ie User Observe the lady s smile/eye, which shows that she is enjoying the orange juice This proves the importance of having a social presence is much more beneficial in capturing the attention ( 20 )
Conclusion This is consistent with the findings from the HE, user experience test and eye tracking test. From the results of this study, it can be seen that it is important to apply the Gestalt Principle, Fitts Law and affordance across the site consistently. Once the fundamental usability principles have been applied, though, other principles such as trust, social presence, online and offline communication elements need to be incorporated. ( 21 )
Thank You Fundamental Social Trust Trust Gestalt Networking Social Fitts Law Affordance Presence Communication Fundamental Language ( 22 )
Reference 1. Jack Davison, Web Ecommerce Development: Defining Business Success in the Online Market, December 2010 2. Jakob Nielsen, Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?, 2001 3. Visa ecommerce Consumer Monitor, New Sunday Times, January 9 th 2011 4. Nielsen, J., Enhancing the explanatory power of usability heuristics, Proceedings of CHI 94 conference, 1994 (pp. 152 158) 5. Behrens, R. Design in the visual arts. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1984, 6. Mullet, K. & Sano, D. Designing visual interfaces: Communication oriented techniques Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995 7. David Hothersall History of Psychology, chapter seven, 2004 8. Robert Venturi Complexity and contradiction in architecture Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) page 88, 1977 9. Spokane Fall Communicty College, The Gestalt Principle http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm, unpublished 10. Khaled Hassanein & Milena Head, Manipulating perceived social presence through the web interface and its impact on the attitude towards online shopping, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,vol.65, Aug. 2007,pp689-708 11. Geke van Dijk, Shailey Minocha & Angus Laing, Consumers, channel and communication: Online and offline communication in service consumption, Interacting with Computers,vol.19,2007,pp7-19 12. Susan Fowler & Victor Stanwick Web Application Design Handbook, Best Practices for Web Based Software, 2004 13. Nielsen, http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/inspection_summary.html 14. Ashok Sivaji, Azween Abdullah, Alan G. Downe, Usability Testing Methodology: Effectiveness of Heuristic Evaluation in E- Government Website Development,ISBN 978-0-7695-4412-4, Proceedings of 2011 Fifth Asia Modelling, AMS 2011 Conference,pp.62-66 15. Wei-siong Tan, Dahai Liu, Ram Bishu, Web evaluation: Heuristic evaluation vs. user testing International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, vol 39,2009,pp621-627 16. Ball Linden J, EgerN, Stevens R,Dodd J (2006) Applying the post-experience eye-tracked protocol (PEEP) method in usability testing. Interfaces, Informs, Cincinnati, vol. 67:15 19 17. Kath Straub,UI Design Newsletter, Human Factor International, April 2005 18. Tharon W.Howard, Design to Thrive Creating Social Network and Online Communities that Last,pp36 41, 2010 19. Jean Ethier, Pierre Hadaya, Jean Talbot & Jean Cadieux, B2C web site quality and emotions during online shopping episodes: An empirical study Information and Management,vol.43,2006,pp627-639 20. Paul M. Fitts (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, volume 47, number 6, June 1954, pp. 381 391. (Reprinted in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(3):262 269, 1992). ( 23 )