How can website design be improved by the study of ergonomics Essay

How can website design be improved by the study of ergonomics - Essay Example This design of human-machine interface is based on the basic instincts and psychology of human like clicking an icon on a touchpad to initiate an application. Bob Boie developed the first touch screen pad at Bell Labs in 1984 that allowed the users to manipulate the graphics with their fingers. However, it is recently that electronic device manufacturers have started exploiting this technology for consumers like using finger touch to open a book and turn pages that give a feel similar to real world. In this research, three websites categories from Webby Award’s website; Charitable Organizations/Non-profit, Social Networking and e-Commerce focusing different area were evaluated for ergonomics on a number of factors including navigation, search, layout of information, quality of text and others by users of hand held devices using a 15 points questionnaire. The results indicated that websites were ratings were dissimilar for navigation and usefulness by experienced and inexperien ced users; however, ergonomics quality of the website needed improvements. For this developers, need to concentrate on web layout, structure and improvements in navigation. This would improve not only the ergonomics of the website but also the website overall impression resulting in increased frequency of website visitors. Table of Contents ABSTRACT 1 1.1 Introduction 6 1.2 Rationale and Theoretical Framework 2 2. Literature Review 5 2.1 Human Factors and Ergonomics 5 2.2 The Expansion of Internet 6 2.3 Human Computer Interaction 7 2.4 Major Web Design Mistakes 8 2.4.1 Bad Search 8 2.4.2 Online Reading of PDF Files 9 2.4.3 Colours of Visited Links Remain Unchanged 9 2.4.4 Non Scannable Test 10 2.4.5 Fixed Font Size 10 2.4.6 Pages Titles with Low Search Engine Visibility 11 2.4.7 Any Thing That Looks Like an Advertisement 11 2.4.8 Violating Design Conventions 12 2.4.9 Opening New Browser Windows 12 2.4.10 Not Answering User’s Questions 12 2.5 Web Interface Design 12 2.5.1 Plan Structure 13 2.5.2 Content Design 13 2.5.3 Consistency 13 2.5.4 Make Web Interface Accessible 14 2.5.5 Solid Navigational Base 14 2.5.6 Put User Input into Perspective 14 2.6 Ergonomics Method for Website Design 15 2.6.1 Planning of Design 15 2.6.2 Content Analysis 16 2.6.3 Organizing Information 16 2.6.4 Process Analysis 16 2.6.5 Design and Development 16 2.6.6 Designing for Global Users 17 2.6.7 Usability Testing 17 2.6.8 Conducting Usability Testing and Evaluation 17 2.6.9 Offline Usability Testing 18 2.6.10 Maintenance 18 2.6.11 Checking Website Integrity 18 2.7 Hand Held Devices and Web Interaction 19 3. Research Methodology 20 3.1 Research Design 20 3.1.1 Exploratory Research 20 3.1.2 Conclusive Research 20 3.1.3 Descriptive Research 21 3.1.4 Casual Research 21 3.2 Quantitative and Qualitative Research 22 3.3 Data Collection Methodology 22 3.3.1 Structured Interviews 22 3.3.2 Survey Questionnaire 23 3.4 Design of Questionnaire 23 3.4.1 Structure of Questionnaire 23 3.4.2 Ques tion Types 23 3.5 Sampling 25 4. Findings and Discussions 26 4.1 Respondent’s Profile 26 4.2 e-Commerce Websites 30 4.2.1 Navigation 31 4.2.2 User Considerations 32 4.2.3 Website Usefulness 32 4.3 Charitable Organizations / Non-profit 34 4.3.1 Navigation 35 4.3.2 User Considerations 35 4.3.3 Website Usefuln