Design Diary

Evaluation: This website is the ugliest website I have ever used, which has made the weekly online scheduling of my Korean appointments a pleasure for the past two years. First, the entry point is poorly designed. Users enter the website from a login screen, and the home page immediately bombards them with an abundance of text and colors all at once. This text defines the function of the menu buttons, which goes against Norman’s fundamental argument- users should be able to tell how the system works simply by looking at it. Requiring new users to read an entire page of text is excessive. Additionally, while the black text on the first page is legible, legibility decreases the further the user travels into the website, culminating in yellow font on a maroon background. Word capitalization and italics are sometimes used at random. Also, the list of available appointments does not use sufficient spacing between appointments, forcing the user to use a straightedge to make sure that they are selecting the right appointment. The designers could have used the variety of colors in the design for the purpose of color-coding, which is an example of the concept of similarity, or objects with a similar appearance being associated with each other. However, the use of color is also completely random.

The interface also contains hidden and false affordances. The list of languages in the login screen gives no indication that items can be clicked, and the log off button appears to be random text rather than a clickable button. These are both hidden affordances. The blue “Student Access Home Page” button above the other menu tabs is a false affordance- it has a similar appearance to other tabs, which are clickable, but it cannot be clicked or selected and seems to just be a second page title disguised as a tab. Furthermore, the interface has a lack of both external and internal consistency. The log in button is yellow, a color that signifies caution, while many buttons representing positive actions are green. The log off button is normally associated with an account tab or the top right of the page, but this one is in the middle right of the page, under the tabs. These are both examples of external inconsistency. Also, the login button is on the left and the cancel button is on the right. In most interfaces, the positive command is located on the right. This is an example of internal inconsistency that leads to increased user error. Lastly, the menu bar represents a missed opportunity to make use of Fitts’ Law- if it had been placed at the top of the screen, users would be able to reach it more quickly due to the constraint of the top of the page.

The website gives the user little information about whether they are using it correctly. It provides insufficient feedback- for example, the system does not tell the user how much time remains before their session will time out. It is also low in forgiveness- the system actually tells you in the user information that “the delete button’s function is immediate and irreversible. There are no other safety checks.” This puts the burden of preventing mistakes on the user. Furthermore, the system has a high performance load. Once a tab is selected, the user cannot click on the same tab again to go back to the main screen that appears under that tab. Instead, the user must click on another tab and then click the original tab, or they must use the back arrow on their web browser to go back. This increases the kinematic load, or the physical effort required to complete the desired task.  Finally, the error messages within the portal have been designed well in some ways and poorly in others. The error messages generally give polite, helpful suggestions about actions that the user can take, but they still resort to using upper-case code words for problematic fields- for example, “USER NAME” instead of “username.”