Unlocking Usability: A Heuristic Evaluation of Wakefit.co
Optimizing Wakefit.co for User Convenience
What is Wakefit ?
Wakefit.co is the official website of Wakefit, an Indian e-commerce company that specializes in sleep solutions and home furniture. The website offers a wide range of products, including mattresses, pillows, bed frames, sofas, wardrobes, and more. Wakefit is known for its innovative products, high quality, and affordable prices.
Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics
Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics are a set of ten general principles for user interface design. They serve as guidelines to evaluate the usability of an interface. Let’s apply these heuristics to conduct a heuristic evaluation of Wakefit.co
Severity Ratings provide a way to assess the impact and urgency of usability issues
- 0: No violations found
- 1: Cosmetic problems only: Fix issues if time permits.
- 2: Minor usability problems: Fix issues at medium priority.
- 3: Major usability problems: Fix issues with high priority.
- 4: Usability catastrophe: Needs to be fixed urgently.
Evaluation findings
The Evaluation uncovered three notable usability issues of wakefit
1. Visibility of system status
Lack of progress bar while buying a product
When buying a product, there is no progress indicator showing users their current status..
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 2
Solution : Implement a progress bar to provide users with status updates during the multi-step buying process.
2. User control and freedom
a) Long wait after 3 unsuccessful OTP input attempts on login/signup
No users like to wait on the onboarding process. Making them wait for around an hour is a severe violation of usability principles.
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 4
Solution : Remove limits and unnecessary waiting time
b) Lack of “Buy Now” button
On buying a product, users need to add it to the cart first, then only can they buy it. If the cart is already filled with other items, they need to remove them
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 4
Solution : Add a “Buy Now” button along with the “Add to Cart” button.
c) No option to delete account
Not providing an option for users to delete their account violates usability principles.
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 3
Solution : Add a “Delete Account” button.
3. Aesthetic and Minimalist design
a) Clustered UI
The clustered UI design is causing headaches for users while navigating the website.
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 3
Solution : Use whitespace, proper padding, and alignment to create a minimalist UI. Following Gestalt principles can significantly improve the UI design.
b) ‘Cancel Order’ Option Not Highlighted
The ‘Cancel Order’ option is difficult to find as it’s grouped with two other options.
Heuristic violated: YES, Severity Rating: 3
Solution : Make the ‘Cancel Order’ option more button-like. Use different colors for the options, with red being the standard choice for the ‘Cancel Order’ option.
Overall findings from the heuristic evaluation
Conclusion
Overall, wakefit.co is a well-designed and user-friendly website that offers a wide range of high-quality products at affordable prices. However, there are a few areas where the website could be improved. For example, the website could benefit from a more consistent navigation structure, and the product information pages could be more detailed. Additionally, the website could be made more mobile-friendly by using a responsive design and providing more freedom to users.
Lessons learned
Through this evaluation, I have learned the significance of applying UX heuristics to evaluate and improve website usability. It highlights the value of ongoing learning and continuous improvement in the field of design.
Let’s remember that, as designers, we should always strive to create user-centric experiences by incorporating usability heuristics and conducting regular evaluations to refine our designs.
Reference : https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
