Lucy Zhang

Ebay:

Heuristic evaluation on the current website

Heuristics offer guidance for assessing a design and recognizing potential design issues. It is an approach to testing a service by applying heuristics to uncover usability issues. In this project, I and my team will do a heuristic evaluation to assess the usability of the eBay website and suggest design improvements.

Tools: Figma

Team: Lucy (myself), Sean, Samreen, Shayan

My Role: UX research, UX Design

Timeline: 2 weeks (Week 1: finding heuristic violations, Week 2: Design improvements)

Overview

Advantages of Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation contributes to enhancing key aspects such as: 

  • Boosting user engagement
  • Reducing bounce rate
  • Increasing click-through rate

violation severity

  • Rate of occurrence
  • Impact
  • Duration of Effect

Severity Rating legend

  • 0 = No Issue
  • 1 = Cosmetic
  • 2 = Minor Usability
  • 3 = Major Usability
  • 4 = Usability Catastrophe

#4

Consistency and standard

#8

Aesthetic and minimal design

#1

Visibility of system status

#6

Recognition rather than recall

#3

User control and freedom

Project Constraints

8 point grid system

Colors

Iconography

Typography

  • Market Sans
  • Arial
  • Sans-serif
  • Helvetica Neue
  • Helvetica

#4: Consistency and standards

Before:

Due to inconsistent buttons & fonts, the user does not know where to go to access the main CTA.

Solution (after):

Moved the sign-in link to the top right side of the screen and make all buttons consistent. Make sign-in to eBay more streamlined with today’s e-commerce competitors.

#8: Aesthetic & minimalist design

Before:

Information on the right is redundant as it is repeated in a later section on the bottom.

Solution (after):

Removed the redundant right section that is repeated later on the bottom section to make the product page more minimalistic.

#1: Visibility of system status

Before:

The button remains as “Watching” after unselecting, despite the hover state showing that the item can be unwatched.  

Solution (after):

As the user clicks on “Unwatching”, the system status now undergoes a change.

#6: Recognition rather than recall

Before:

When the user clicks “Add To Cart” on an item, they are redirected to another page to add their contact information, forcing them to repeat redundant steps. 

Solution (after):

Have a pop-up notification that shows the user it is added to the cart so they have the option to checkout or stay on the same page.  

#3: User control & freedom

Before:

During the checkout process, the user does not have the option to easily remove an item they have in their cart. 

Solution (after):

Add a remove link that is consistent with eBay beside the item quantity. 

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Drop me an email at [email protected]

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