Hemant's Blogs

Monday, March 21, 2016

World Education Services Provides Very Limited Customer Support

World Education Services (WES) is the one of the organizations to evaluate academic credentials for education/admission purposes. Before actually paying money, end user will always want to know how to send documents. Some evaluation service providers accept email from reputed universities, others only go by sealed envelope in mail. If the perspective customer tries to contact WES for correspondence queries like the one mentioned above, they mark WES Reference Number mandatory as mentioned in Figure 1 below. This Reference Number is generated only after required payment is done. The user may not want to pay, until and unless all his doubts are clear. So, this contact form is useless in practical. Further, there is no phone number mentioned here on this page to contact customer service.

Figure 1. Information to be filled on Contact WES form.

Figure 2. Ugly error message displayed if virtual WES Reference number is given.

As per Krug (2014), hiding information like customer support number and asking information that is not really needed are some of the factors to diminish goodwill. Even if the queries being asked by the end user is hidden somewhere in the site, he is entitled to get help on what he has paid or intend to pay for.

References

Krug, S. (2014). Usability as common courtesy. In Don’t Make Me Think (pp. 152-153). San Francisco, CA: Peachpit.

Bank of America Website is not Responsive

If an end user with older screen resolutions try to visit Bank of America website, he will observe a scroll bar in the browser.

Figure 1. Scrollbar in the webpage since content didn’t adjust as per window size.

As per Rumsey, Roth, and Wallace (2013), Responsive web design (RWD) is a way of coding web pages so that they look good on any screen. This concept is not limited to a mobile device, but to all possible screen resolution based on any technology and hardware. As per Breeding (2015), access to Library Technology Guides in February 2015 was 63% desktop, 27% mobile, and 10% tablet and he supports Google decision to decrease page rank of websites with poor mobile usability. Bank of America may have answered Google by giving altogether different content location to mobile users, but desktop users / end users on devices with weird resolution are still suffering.

References

Kumar, H. (2016, March 20). Bank of America Website is not Responsive [Video file]. Retrieved March 20, 2016, from https://youtu.be/bH_4ns6wWP8

Breeding, M. (2015). Going mobile: How I made my own site responsive. Computers in Libraries, 35(4), 23-24,26. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1689887493?accountid=27424

Rumsey, E., Roth, L., & Wallace, W. S., M.S.L.S. (2013). Responsive web design for an academic health sciences library website. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 101(4), 239-240. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1491276028?accountid=27424

MakeMyTrip doesn’t maintain User Flow State across subsites

When an end user switch from one region subdomain to another on MakeMyTrip website, he is taken to home page every time. Say, the end user is on search result page on U.S. sub-domain, if he switch to Indian sub-domain, he will have to start again. This is described in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. MakeMyTrip: Search preferences lost.

Alcántara-Pilar, del Barrio-García, Porcu, and Crespo-Almendros (2015) studied user flow state (hedonic motivation) in depth and found that it has deep impressions on end user’s loyalty and attitude towards a website. Above mentioned experience on MakeMyTrip may leave end user in confusion and he may have the tendency to switch to competitor right away.

References

Alcántara-Pilar, J. M., del Barrio-García, S., Porcu, L., & Crespo-Almendros, E. (2015). Motivational duality in online consumer behaviour: Website usability and flow state as moderating factors. International Journal of Business and Economics,14(1), 79-104. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1706969854?accountid=27424

Kumar, H. (2016, March 20). MakeMyTrip doesn’t maintain User Flow State across subsites [Video file]. Retrieved March 20, 2016, from https://youtu.be/p6sm0ipEC3U

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Fox News Navigation is Broken

Site Navigation in Fox News is not so smart for the user to navigate back from where it came. In the example in Figure 1 below, end user visited Home > U.S. > Environment. Just in three steps, he is lost. There is no site navigation or breadcrumb here. It seems to be, this website is optimized only for search engines, not for the end user to be a regular visitor.

Figure 1. Navigating three level down in Fox News website

As per Spencer (2008), breadcrumb links refer to a trail of category and subcategory links on a website just beneath the master head (main navigation). Keyword-rich breadcrumb links reinforce website's internal hierarchical linking structure to the search engines, as well as enhance its usability. Leave aside breadcrumb, main navigation is altogether missing on just third level in Fox News website.

References

Kumar, H. (2016, March 20). Fox News Navigation [Video file]. Retrieved March 20, 2016, from https://youtu.be/JiIUZCBm4jA

Spencer, S. (2008). The search is on. Multichannel Merchant, 25(4), 29-n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/195854706?accountid=27424

Unnecessary Hype up Apple iphone Features

On Apple official website, there are lots of features of all versions of iphone mentioned, which if studied in detail, don’t even make sense to perspective buyer. Possible reason behind, they hide proper help at right place, is to let the buyer be in confusion and seller take the advantage of this situation. For example, on the Apple website, where end user compare iPhone features with older models, some terms e.g. local tone mapping make no sense to an average end user, as mentioned in Figure 1. Even if end user search for this term in search box, nothing much helpful is available.

Figure 1. Apple must help end user to understand what a feature means, they claim to be present in a product.

As per Kantner, Shroyer, and Rosenbaum (2002), the way end user is trying to seek help for products is changing drastically. Help and documentation about the product should be done in a way which faces least resistance by the end user to understand. Apple must provide end user with running help for the features in a product. This could either take the negotiations in positive direction for seller or may be, in negative direction if user choose not spend money for a feature claimed. But in any case, some kind of running help as suggested in Figure 1 will definitely lead to better satisfaction as a whole.

References

Kantner, L., Shroyer, R., & Rosenbaum, R. (2002). Structured Heuristic Evaluation of Online Documentation. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from http://teced.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kantner_HE_of_online_doc.pdf

Saturday, March 19, 2016

People Search Filters Missing in Bing Search

Biggest problem with Bing search Engine is that, they are busy copying Google features without a thought in head. People search is an example that supports this fact. Search results layout for a person name in Google and Bing is almost the same. Good thing is that by keyword, both search engines know that, end user is searching for a person, at least. But, the most important thing, effectiveness of search results is diminished by missing person filters.

Figure 1. Bing Search results for a person name.

Figure 2. Google Search results for a person name.

Figure 3. Suggested dynamic filter features for search results page – action: search person name.

As per Thurow and Musica (2009), while studying a search engine, its effectiveness, efficiency, learnability, memorability, error prevention & recovery and satisfaction is taken into account. By copying Google as described in Figure 1 and Figure 2 above, Bing Search Engine is trying to cater learnability only. There should be something more Bing must plan to cater to go above and beyond Google. With dynamic filtering suggestion described in Figure 3 above, Bing could achieve better effectiveness and satisfaction.

References

Thurow, S., & Musica, N. (2009). When Search Meets Web Usability. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from http://deca.cuc.edu.cn/Community/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00.00.00.11.64/When.Search.Meets.Web.Usability.pdf

Google Calendar Won’t Let You Print All Search Results

This is a very common use case, where you want to print large number of events in Google Calendar. But print view of this tool is not optimized for printing. Suppose, a user has many (33 in current example in Figure 1 below) events upcoming for a search keyword, if he tries to print the results, he may only get few of the events (13 in the Figure 1 example below) in the paper print he takes.

Figure 1. Google Calendar is not optimized for printing.

As per Leavitt and Shneiderman (2013), dimensions of content should be adjusted to fit most common page size while printing. But Google Calendar print style sheet is not smart enough to remove scroll bars while printing.

References

Leavitt, M., & Shneiderman, B. (2013). Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from http://www.usability.gov/sites/default/files/documents/guidelines_book.pdf