Design and Evaluation Stages

At this stage, The KITABAK website was designed. The design process was determined regarding the following methods and guidance.

2.3.2.1 Use of Guidance

Norman (1988) portrayed design principles of

• Visibility: where visible functions enable users to interact

• Feedback: in which notifications are concerned with sending information to the user about their actions

• Mapping: represents the relationship between controls and their effects, e.g. arrows which represent the directions that the effect will take place

• Constraints: are limiting factors of the apparent function of a device, e.g. certain options may be deactivated to indicate that they are not selectable

• Affordances: which are an object’s features that enable users to recognise how to use it, e.g. a button suggests pushing it by its physical appearance.

Consequently, three types of conceptual models were proposed as design model – what conceptualisation did the designer have in mind?; user’s model – how does the user understand the system’s function?; and system image – how does the system appear, operate, and respond? 2.3.2.2 Usability Evaluation

Dumas and Redish (1999) described usability evaluation as ‘a systematic way of observing actual users trying out a product and collecting information about the specific ways in which the product is easy or difficult for them to use’. Many designers redesign products based on feedback from user evaluations, aiming to maximise the usability of the final product and adopt an iterative process. This practice is still carried

out by big companies such as Microsoft and IBM (Shneiderman and Plaisant, 2004).

Usability in products’ design depends on effectiveness, which depends on how well users perform towards a product, and the designer should be concerned about the output or performance that can be achieved when using the product, while efficiency is a measure of the necessary effort to achieve a specified level of effectiveness, while safety includes the safety of the individual using a product, and also the impact on others who might be affected, and comfort includes satisfaction and is a more subjective measure of how people feel about a product (Poulson et al., 1996).

Children tend to repeat the same method to start an action, so if they succeed in a certain approach to a site, they stick to that approach and repeat it again and again even if it ‘wrongs’ them during subsequent tasks that asked them to use a different navigation system. When designing for children, it is suggested to narrow the target group because children can be categorised into three levels according to age: 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. The definition of design differs among the three levels; each group behaves differently, and becomes more web-savvy as they get older. Children between 3 and 12 years are divided into pre-readers, beginning readers, and moderately skilled readers; therefore design should be different for each group (Nielsen, 2010).

Design elements become fun when they attract, capture, and hold children’s attention by provoking unusual emotions in contexts that typically arouse none, or by arousing emotions not typically aroused in a given context. This means that children are looking for entertainment and fun more than they are looking for satisfaction with a product (Sim et al., 2005). The most important role to remember while designing a website for children is to keep it simple and not overloaded with design elements (Eisende et al., 2007).

Nielsen (2010) summarised child users’ behaviour regarding web usability in the following table:

Table 2.1 Children Users’ Behaviour Regarding Web Usability.

Goal in visiting websites For entertainment

First reaction Quick to judge, and leave if it is bad

Willingness to wait They want immediate gratification

Following website rules Preferred

User control Preferred

Exploratory behaviour They like to try many options

Redundant navigation They found it very confusing

Back button Not used

Reading Tentative

Readability level Each user’s grade level

Real life metaphors Very helpful for pre-readers

Font size 14 point

Physical limitations Slow typists, poor mouse control

Scrolling They avoid it

Animation and sound Liked

Advertising and promotions

They cannot distinguish it from real content

Reveal private info Usually they are aware of issues and hesitant to enter

info

Age-targeted design They are crucial, with very fine-grained distinctions

between age groups

Search More reliance on bookmarks than search

2.3.2.3 Usability Inspection

Usability inspection uses five methods including heuristic evaluation, guideline reviews, consistency inspection, cognitive walkthroughs, and feature inspections (Nielsen and Mark, 1994). ‘Heuristic Evaluation’ involves a few expert evaluators inspecting an interface in order to judge its fulfilment with standard usability principles. These experts are able to identify problems, suggest solutions, and enable the making of improvements at an early stage of development (Nielsen, 1993). Three to five evaluators are enough for an inspection (Nielsen, 2008). While ‘Guideline Reviews’ represent a method, an interface is checked for correspondence with a list of usability guidelines. ‘Consistency Inspections’, a method used by designers who represent multiple projects, in which they inspect an interface, to check that its function is consistent with their own designs (Nielsen and Mark, 1994). ‘Cognitive Walkthrough’ was derived from a theory of learning by exploration (Polson et al., 1992), it estimates how well an interface design supports a user who is learning a task. And the process of task analysis identifies the

set of actions to accomplish a task (Hackos and Redish, 1998). For each action, the researcher foretells a typical user’s interaction with the interface. Tasks that are selected will illustrate a broad range of the product’s functionality and identify the maximum amount of usability problems that may exist (Dumas and Redish, 1999). ‘Feature Inspections’ focus on the function delivered in a software system whether it meets the users’ needs (Nielsen and Mark, 1994).

Ericsson and Simon (1993) described the technique of protocol analysis, which assumes that verbal comments during an observational study reflect what participants are thinking and can help a researcher understand how a user interacts with a product. In the case of an interface, if a user expects that a different sequence of steps would have enabled him to reach a goal, it may be worth the designers considering whether the interface would be improved if that sequence were incorporated. It could also be helpful to incorporate the user’s terminology into the product design (Byrne et al., 1999). Podd et al. (1995) compared the four user-based software evaluation methods of logged data, questionnaires, interviews, and verbal protocol analysis and found verbal protocol analysis to be the most efficient.

When it comes to contemporary social research, ‘Research Ethics’ established a system of ethical protections in order to protect the rights of research participants, as the principle of voluntary participation prohibits forcing people to participate in research. Voluntary participants must be fully informed about the procedures and risks involved in research and must give their approval to participate. Participants should remain anonymous throughout the study, even to the researchers, as a strong guarantee of privacy (Trochim, 2006).