Usability of the Website - Essay Example

Millions of users visit the Internet based sources every day or even every hour. In technical colloquialism, it is Human-computer interaction, but the operative part of it is that of mutual utility. The content host needs to see the worthiness of the visitor from an objective (commercial, academic or others) point of view, and similarly the visitor must feel satisfaction and fulfilment of his desires (again commercial, academic or others). Traditionally, the level of engagement and interaction is gauged in terms of the number of visitors and time spent by each visitor to a particular website. However, this criterion becomes less applicable to the websites with academic orientation. Usability of the website We start our journey to the Website, by first of clicking at the Resources. The moment the mouse touches the link, five separate links are immediately suggested. Slightly overlapping the other text, but still with visible. This overlap might impair the perceptibility in a smaller screen, or in the situation of two windows. The same is the situation with all the links at the top of the page. Thus, we can say the web hosts presume only the premeditated and well equipped visitors to reach the site. Given the nature of the site, all the five links (to Resources) seem pretty attractive. However, opening the same link in a separate window gives a better experience. The option of going back to all the aspects of the home page is there, without pressing the backspace button. Four pictures can be seen in the right hand side of the site, lure a casual visitor to click to them and a good enlarged picture, can be easily downloaded. The middle of the page gives a number of themes and offers ‘closer look’, ‘In-Depth Studies’, ‘Magazine’,& ‘Imaginary exhibitions’. Each is just a title to a URL with a list of available material. The search link works well. Thus locating and saving a desired picture is not much of a problem. To reach to the database of the site, one needs to first go to the site map. The site map gives really a good view of the contents and here only one can feel free from the intricacies of the dainties of art and can feel free to roam as a free netizen. However, this freedom is short-lived. The path and suitability is smooth till you touch the databases. The page thus open does provide something to read, to see and a lot to explore. But further exploration re-enters into the gawky and regimented world of arts, strictly restricting anybody unfamiliar with the nomenclature. This forces the surfer to go to the help button and consult the calendar. Further, the calendar is available in PDF form only, requiring acrobat reader, sufficient to ward off anybody in rush. Insult to injury is inflicted that ‘non availability’ of searched item is not displayed. The ‘search’ per se may still be possible, but it is sure that no sundry visitor may see, what is in the store. The sundry visitor is forced to take the couse of either ‘room’ or ‘by department’. This trick, particularly that of the ‘department’ works and one can see a number of categories of works and arts. From here one can easily jump to the paintings section and can save a good one. For example a picture by La Vierge. However, a working knowledge of French becomes mandatory here and the picture thus saved is only a miniature one. No link is provided to either enlarge or save the picture. One has to go right and click. ‘La Fayette’ seems comparatively a better managed page. It is a database of American Art with the museum. It contents works by United States artists from the French national collections, for a specific period : 1620-1940. Here you can not resist to be fascinated by the site. However, to come out of this seduction, all you need is to go to the search button. Lofty claims about the effectiveness of the search, simple and advanced merged into one, are actually found to be only the pre-click wonders. The search is found to be as faulty as it were in the case of the database. None of the Whisler, Pollock and Loewy exists in the searcheable data. One has to go to the Artists' Name Index to find the artist. There Whisler’s name appears four times - Whisler James Abbott Mac Neill, Whisler James Abbott MacNeill, Whisler James MacNeill & Whisler James McNeill. If is not sufficient to confuse the visitor, no link or description is provided to the list. The same experience is with Pollock and Loewy. The website is least useable in finding the works of the given authors. Mona Lisa Joconde Database claims to be incorporating 120,000 descriptions of ‘drawings, prints, and paintings from the 7th century to the present day’. However, clicking to this link frustrates the visitor to the ultimate. The page gives several links, of course in French only, but the search is again pathetic. Any amount of struggle can not take you to the desired painting or sculpture. The virgin of the rocks, Madonna of the Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci or any other catchword does not work. To move on, if you go to the given links, you are required to get the authorisation. Louvre Museum is certainly one of the largest and oldest museums of the world. Yet the website of the same couldn’t be accordingly promising. The fundamental question arises that whether art and websites don’t go together happily ? A casual visit to websites of other museums confutes this argument. An interesting part of the Louvre Museum website is the display of artworks in 3D exhibition rooms. This is interesting from two dimensions. One , when the traffic is restricted at several points, how can the 3D exhibition rooms be of any use. Rather, the 3D exhibition rooms become a kind of entry ticket to the visitor. The website, like a real visitor, should first of all provide with a ‘guide’ to the museum. That part is clearly lacking and visitor is presumed to be familiar not only with the museum, but also with the website. However the assessment of the usability of the website is done through several methods, and an important criteria is the target audience of the site. The Usability is defined in ISO 9241-11 ‘as the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use’. A site might look quite dysfunctional to a sundry user, but may be quite useful to the targeted audiences. The individual experience report card for specified goals with effectiveness is dismal, for efficiency again very poor and satisfaction is nonexistent. This might be the case of an individual, but as the known website engineer Jakob Nielsen has claimed that ‘ usability is about basic human capabilities and users’ needs which do not change nearly as rapidly as technology.’ Here is a clear case of either the vastness of the museum or the mandarin manners of the world of arts, which exclude the visitor to find it useful. Thus come in picture the effectiveness of the individual experience approach of assessment. The individual put to test here is an English speaking person, not much familiar with the French, beyond the common or adapted words. The lack of translation facility beyond the primary layers of the site handicap the usability. However, presuming the targeted audiences to be French familiar only, similar tests should be conducted with the French familiar individuals. A word about the ‘interesting part’, i.e. Rich Media Applications, which is about the use of Custom Flash Development, meant to add animation and sound to any website application. But if we wish the website to be accessible to users with different browser capability, the same additional capability becomes an impediment. A user friendly website is supposed to avoid using technologies that might cause users’ systems to crash or stiffen when visiting the website. To crosscheck the effectiveness of this approach, we go to the Malaysian Journal of Computer Science. The authors (Thiam Kian Chiew and Siti Salwa Salim) have given a questionnaire for the individual assessment. Here is a list, which can in fact be used to assess the user friendliness of even a restaurant. This website contains most of my interest material and topics and they are up-to-date. I can easily find what I want at this website. The content of this website is well organised. Reading content at this website is easy. I am comfortable and familiar with the language used. I need not scroll left and right when reading at this website. To the individual in this assessment, answer to all the above questions is a clear NO, that is despite of the fact that throughout the surfing, one knows it well and easily where is at the website. Secondly, the cues and links provided by the website may not interest to one individual, but are potent enough to attract a good many of others, and thus can not be written off. No doubt, moving around at the website is again easy. But the website opens so many new browser windows simultaneously, that it becomes difficult to resist from feeling lost. The website’s interface design is attractive. Colours used at the website are cushy. Further, to download a file or to open a page does not take too much of time. Even when the website does little to respond to expectations. The worst part is that the website never provides any message, when one is lost in the site and does not know how to proceed. To conclude, the website in question needs a lot to do to be user-friendly. ***** Read More