Is it good website usability if I can't remember where everything is?
What are two telltale signs of poor website usability? How about when you find yourself mumbling, "Now where was that section I liked . . ."? Or you notice an interesting website feature -- and then you try to find it again. When you hear yourself saying, "Oh, you just have to KNOW that "Wish List" and "Design Board" are in the "Store," that qualifies as telltale sign #2.
eQuilter.com is one of those websites that works much better the more you use it. That's because you "learn" how to use it, you learn where to find things. So it's great if you're willing to look around for 10 minutes and figure things out.
What's the problem with websites that assume visitors will "learn"? What if I end up frustrated at the way the website works and I'm not willing to spend the 10 minutes to figure it out? Or what if I just don't find much that excites me -- because the really useful features are difficult to find. It's just too easy to search for another website. And so a second visit is very unlikely.
Visit eQuilter.com and you'll notice a crowded top menu area of the site. Main menu items seem to be interspersed with more utility-type menu items. You see "cart" before you see any real navigation choices. The top area includes both "What's new" (which you don't really notice, because it's the second choice after "Cart") and "News" -- what's the difference? There's every copywriter's nightmare -- the word "subscribe" strangely broken into "sub" and "scribe" because the designer couldn't create a menu design that would accommodate longer words. The eye notices this strange break in the word. Conclusion? Some things are not right on this site, and you begin to form a less-than-positive impression about the brand.
The main menu contains so few appealing choices that I completely ignored it: Store Account News About Help. Why list "Account" before "News"? When creating your menu, identify the most important elements, and put them in prominent locations so they don't get lost within your menu. (Remember that only YOU will be reading line by line, word for word -- most visitors won't be.)
So I went right to one of the fabric collections shown on the home page. Then I LEARNED that by selecting one of the 5 main menu choices, a sub-menu appears right below those choices on the interior pages. Oh. So that's where I saw the "Wish List" and "Design Board." Wish it hadn't taken me 10 minutes to find them the second time. (There's a "Browse" option in the "Store" sub-menu -- after clicking on it a few times on different pages, I still have no idea how it really works or what it's actually supposed to do . . .).
The search options on this site also need to be "learned." Every page features a prominent search box in the upper right. But if you use that search function, you can't take advantage of options for matching "every word" or "only some words" in your search request. You just have to KNOW to click "Search" in another place -- in a location I, unfortunately, can't remember -- to take advantage of the additional search options.
When you select a fabric category, evidently the first fabric in that category appears in a large view at the top of your screen, followed by some display options below the fabric, indicating "display 1-50" or some other number of fabrics. Huh? Oh, you have to just KNOW to scroll down below that to see a list of all of the thumbnails of the various fabrics in the category.
If you click on a particular fabric, the product detail page for that fabric is another very crowded layout. The product name is organized in multiple lines -- looking very strange -- on the top left. Now for some good news: there's a "click image for color" feature. Once you LEARN that if you mouse over an area of the fabric and click there, it changes the color shown in a separate box. Then you can click "find this color" to find other complementary fabrics. And you can search in "all categories" or narrow your search by specific category. And there's a "related products" tab as well.
WEBSITE USABILITY SCORE (10 is stellar, 1 is dreadful)
Easy-to-use Main Menu: 2
Know-where-you-are Sub Menus: 8 (breadcrumbs are used)
Utility menu: 2
Search function: 5
Help functions: 5 (click on "help" for a total of 3 FAQs)
Views of different versions of the item: NA
Navigation within product area: 5
Completeness of product information provided: 8 (have to "know" that fabric content is discussed in one of those 3 FAQs within "help")
In-stock/out-of-stock situation: 1 (no indicator)
Clickable graphics/photos: 10
Ability to enlarge product shots: 1
Options for sorting products: 2
Online catalog navigation: NA
Running shopping cart total on screen: 1
Total Score: 50/120 = 4
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