A Comparative Usability Evaluation of User Interfaces for Online Product Catalogs by Ewa Callahan - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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A Comparative Usability Evaluation of User Interfaces for Online Product Catalogs by Ewa Callahan

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The database used for this study (AutoDB) contains 1690 cars with over 20 attributes. ... for an interactive online catalog interface used in e-commerce. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: A Comparative Usability Evaluation of User Interfaces for Online Product Catalogs by Ewa Callahan


1
A Comparative Usability Evaluation of User
Interfaces for Online Product CatalogsbyEwa
Callahan Jurgen Koenemannpresented byAndrew
TrieuICS 280 - Information VisualizationDepartme
nt ICS at UCIJune 6, 2002
2
Introduction
  • A comparative study of the usability of
    hierarchically structured and zoomable Electronic
    Product Catalogs (EPC), available online,
  • VERSUS
  • the InfoZoom, a novel interface utilizing a
    compression technique, direct manipulation, and
    zooming.

3
Introduction (cont)
  • The authors had designed a test search interface
    and used it for comparison between EPC and
    InfoZoom. Performance on both types of
    interfaces was evaluated in terms of search
    speed, accuracy, efficiency, and user
    satisfaction.

4
How EPC comes about
  • Due to the increased in the WWW, many companies
    have used it as a medium to promote and sell
    their products and services. The increase in
    electronic commerce creates a need for Electronic
    Product Catalogs.

5
Customers
  • The customer enjoys a higher level of
    interactivity such as a variety of searching
    possibilities, comparison features to get access
    to more information about the different product,
    etc. However, navigation problems are the second
    most cited reason for not shopping online.

6
Introduction (cont)
  • The most common catalog interfaces on the Web are
    hierarchically organized catalogs, where the
    consumer sees the list of the products and can
    follow the links to their more detailed
    description.

7
Problems Solution
  • Problems of the hierarchically organized catalogs
    are
  • Confusing,
  • Items in dropdown menus are not visible,
  • Lengthy result pages, and
  • Lack of filtering options of results.
  • The solutions are
  • Recommendation approach
  • Interaction approach

8
Recommendation Approach
  • The first approach includes the recommendation
    systems which suggest to the user what the user
    should buy (recommendation approach). This will
    require consumers to enter personal data which
    many consumers will not do.

9
Interaction Approach
  • The second approach concentrates on improving and
    facilitating the consumers interaction with the
    interface, allowing the user to select products
    more easily.
  • The authors were interested in this direction and
    wanted to investigate whether or not highly
    interactive interfaces that support the user in
    the selection of products can improve the finding
    of products.

10
Evaluation of Existing Online Catalogs
  • For the evaluation, the authors had selected 14
    German and English automobile EPCs available on
    the Web in the Fall of 1999.

11
A Summary of the Results
12
Analysis of the Result
  • Database size
  • Searching mode
  • Attributes
  • Specifying Ranges
  • Search History
  • Result Pages
  • Sorting Search Results
  • Item Comparison

13
InfoZoom
  • Based on Ahlberg and Schneidermans dynamic
    queries and Furnas fisheye techniques
  • Displays database relations as tables with
    attributes as rows and objects as columns
  • Overview mode and Compressed mode
  • Offers many different ways of searching
  • Can easily compare, sorting, and re-sorting the
    results.

14
Overview Mode
15
Compressed Mode
16
Usability Study
  • Based on the feature comparison of InfoZoom and
    the hierarchical interfaces, InfoZoom should be a
    more efficient tool that facilitates searches for
    products.
  • The authors conducted a comparative usability
    study to confirm their analysis. Also, they
    performed a controlled experiment that resembled
    online counterpart.

17
Materials
  • The database used for this study (AutoDB)
    contains 1690 cars with over 20 attributes.
  • The hierarchical interface was implement with
    forms in MS Access in a way to resemble the Look
    Feel of the typical online EPC catalog
    features.

18
Hierarchical Interface (1)
19
Hierarchical Interface (2)
20
Hierarchical Interface (3)
21
Participants
  • 26 participants (randomly assigned to either
    InfoZoom or hierarchical interface)
  • 15 males and 11 females
  • 13 ages between 21-30, 9 ages between 31-40, one
    teenager, and one over age 51
  • 16 use computer above 10hr/wk, 6 use computer
    between 3-9hr/wk, and 4 use computer less than
    2hr/wk.

22
Tasks
  • Find Attribute value for given Object
  • T1 Does the Jaguar XJR have side airbags?
  • Find Database Subset Attribute Value
  • T2 How many different models does the Peugeot
    class 106 have?
  • T4 How many cars have the following
    characteristics convertible, 100-150 HP, front
    drive, and cost 40.000 DM or less?

23
Tasks (cont)
  • For given Attribute(s) value(s) Find Object(s)
  • T3 Which middle class car is the cheapest one in
    the database?
  • T6 Which Funcar has the quickest acceleration?
  • Compare Attribute Values for 2 Objects
  • T5 Which car has better fuel consumption the
    Audi A6 1.8 or the Volvo S70 2.0?

24
Tasks (cont)
  • Find Database Attribute Value
  • T7 How many cars are in this catalog?
  • Compare Attribute Values for Subset
  • T8 What is the price range (from the cheapest to
    the most expensive model) for the Alfa Romeo 145
    series?
  • T9 Is the acceleration of the Mercedes-Benz S430
    Automatic slow, normal, or quick for a car of its
    class?

25
Procedure
  • Participants were briefly introduced to the
    purpose of the study and upcoming tasks.
  • InfoZoom participants got a 5 minutes demo about
    InfoZoom.
  • Participants were introduces to 9 tasks. After
    each task, they answer 3 questions about
    satisfaction, perception of the time needed,
    perceived efficiency.
  • After last task, summarize their experience

26
Results
  • Results were analyzed for each category of data
  • Accuracy - equal between both interfaces
  • Completion time
  • AVGIZ 19.4 min. AVGHI 27.7 min.
  • Navigation (out of 7 scale)
  • Ease of use IZ 5.5 HI 4.9
  • Efficiency IZ 5.0 HI 4.8
  • Overall, both were valued higher for IZ.

27
Results (cont)
  • Results were analyzed for each category of data
  • Satisfaction (7-point Likert scale)
  • Comfortable IZ 5.15 HI 5.23
  • Fun IZ 6.3 HI 5.0
  • Overall satisfaction with both system was high

28
Completion rate accuracy
29
Hierarchical Interface
30
InfoZoom
31
Observations
  • The authors observed the participants throughout
    the experiment. Throughout the experiment, the
    authors noted
  • Users strategies
  • Critical incidents - breakdowns and things that
    went especially well
  • Users comments

32
Hierarchical Interface
  • Dislike the ways of looking for the desired
    information from the main menu.
  • Seem lost on pages that looked alike
  • Annoyed by the long pull-down menus and lengthy
    result pages without sorting
  • Confused about default values
  • Criticized at the result pages
  • Stopped the search after getting message no car
    matched the second time

33
InfoZoom Interface
  • Feel overload of information upon their first
    glance at overview screen.
  • Difficulty in choosing the appropriate search
    strategy at the beginning of each task.
  • Participants who preferred selecting objects on
    the screen have difficulty to double-click on
    small sectors.
  • Difficulty with tasks that required comparison or
    gathering more than one different piece of
    information.

34
Conclusion
  • EPCs interfaces were rated high, however
    InfoZoom was rated higher in overall performance.
  • InfoZoom supports Choice by Attribute searching
    strategy better than hierarchical interface.
  • InfoZoom interface is easy to learn.
  • InfoZoom is a promising solution for an
    interactive online catalog interface used in
    e-commerce.
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