ux design - competitor review

Compassionate Dorset website user experience redesign

Competitor review

28 October 2013

Goals of the review

➤ Form a wider understanding of the practices in the industry

➤ Determine how Compassionate Dorset website is performing in relation to similar websites based on set UX factors in order to achive user goals

➤ Improve the experience of the website by examining the best practises on key factors of similar organisations’ websites

Key UX factors

• Navigation

• Calls to action

• Content layout

• Content hierarchy

• Readability

• Signposting

• Trust and credibility

Similar organisation analysis

By examining Compassionate World Farming support groups across the UK only 3 had a website.

Out of these Compassionate Dorset have considerably higher results when measured against the criteria.

To gain a wider understanding 5 other animal welfare related organisations were chosen.

Organisation comparison

Compassion Calderdale

Montgomery Voice For Animals

Compassion in World Farming supporting organisation

Other animal welfare organisation

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Comparison overview

➤ Compassionate Dorset is in middle range regarding performance amongst the chosen similar organisations.

➤ By improving navigation, calls to action, content layout and hierarchy it is possible to significantly improve the overall experience of the website and help users to achieve main tasks of the website more easyily.

Navigation

Calls to action

Content layout

Content hierarchyReadibility

Signposting

Trust and Credibility

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%Comparison to the higest

rated website

Green WoodCompassionate Dorset

Best practice examples

By looking at the best practices of other organisation websites for the key criteria and comparing it against existing practices in Compassionate Dorset website, it is possible to use findings for improvement of the experience in the proposed Compassionate Dorset website redesign strategy.

Navigation menu only accessible on the home page, which makes harder for users to navigate across the site

Navigation

Navigation is lacking visual cues of clickability

Navigation

Clear navigation and structure, which allows user to perform tasks and find information

Calls To Action

Clear call to action forbuying t-shirts

Lacking calls to action to other main tasks above the fold

Visuals cues for calls to action (e.g. there are 4 click areas that brings user to the shop)

Calls To Action

Clear calls to action for prominent tasks above the fold, which instantly attracts users attention

Content Layout

Lack of white space makes the content hard to scan in order to find relevant information

Layout of the footer is aimed to fulfil too many tasks, which can confuse user rather than help to aid goals

Content Layout

Usage of white space in footer guides the user and allows quick scan of information

The footer layout clearly groups several sets of tasks users can perform

Content Hierarchy

Content hierarchy on the pages does not aid user ability to scan or orientate on the page because of lengthy vertical scrolling

Content Hierarchy

Clear heading and description of purpose of the page

Usage of appropriate imagery to support the subheadings of the page

Readability

The font size and spacing prevents from easily reading the content, which can discourage user to read it at all

The length of the lines of text is too long, which can cause frustration if it becomes hard to find where the next line starts

Readability

The font size and line spacing allow user to easy scan the text

Links are connected to nouns and are clearly distinguished from the text

Signposting

Page does not provide further cue about users location

Clear heading of the section

Signposting

Headings allows user to identify the page specific content

Breadcrumbs inform user of the position in the website

Section title and subtitles provides assurance of position and means of navigation

Trust and credibility

The logos lack distinction from the rest of the content to be easily noticeable by the user

There is link to the supported and partner organisations

Trust and credibility

Clear statement of how the donations are being used to aid the cause

Resources:➤ Maier, A., and Kammerer, M. A., 2012.  Smashing Magazine Book,

Volume 4 : Smashing UX Design : Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences. Accessible from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/bournemouth/docDetail.action?docID=10560502&p00=user%20experience [Accessed: 1 November 2013]

➤ Morville, P. and Rosenfeld, L., 2006. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites

➤ http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/06/20/links-should-never-say-click-here/ [Accessed: 1 November 2013]