Website Usability Comparison

Comparison is between victoriasercret.com and bananarepublic.com.

The blow comparison is between victoriasercret.com andbananarepublic.com websites.

Victoriassecret.com is the online version of the lingerie company, which also has brick-and-mortar stores and a catalogue business. Besides lingerie, Victoriassecret.com sells clothing, swimwear, and beauty items. The site helps users find the appropriate styles and sizes of lingerie and clothing, and it offers advice on lingerie-relevant topics, such as how to launder delicate items.

bananarepublic.gap.com is the online store of gap company. They offer 5 different brands. bananarepublic.gap.com page offers modern, covetable workplace style for professional men and women. Collections include clothing, handbags, jewelry and eyewear designs at accessible prices.

Site id:
Showing the site ID (the company’s name and or logo) in a reasonable size and noticeable location is the first step to a great interface design. The upper-left corner is usually the best placement for languages that read from left to right. Both websites have their logo which is also typographic logo in the upper-left corner of the homepage.

URLs:
Homepages for commercial websites should have the URLhttp://www.company.com. bananarepublic site responds to both “www.bananarepublic.com”, “bananarepublic.com” and “bananarepublic.gap.com.”
Victoriassecret.com responds to both through “http://www.victoriassecret.com “, “http://www.victoriasecret.com” and Victoriassecret.com.

Tag line:
A tag line summarizes what the site or company does. Neither of these two websites have tag line. Both website are Presenting a unified face to the customer

Navigation:
The primary navigation area should be in a highly noticeable place, preferably directly adjacent to the main body of the page. Both websites has their primary navigation on top center of the page. On both websites they have their secondary navigation or local navigation on the left side of each page.
On bottom section of the page we can find the about us link which is present with a [+] next to the name of the brands,bananarepublic.com [+]. It would be better if they used the conventional word “about us” and then gave it links to the brands about us page. On Victoriassecret.com we can’t find the about us page.
By making the hierarchy visible, navigation tells us what the site contains. Navigation reveals content! And revealing the site may be even more important than guiding or situating us. Persistent navigation should include the five elements you most need to have on hand at all times:
Site id which links to the homepage, home which links to the homepage, search box, utilities such as how to buy and link to local pages.
Visited and unvisited states should be shown by color. But both websites are lacking in this section. Neither of the websites have breadcrumbs.

Content:
Effective content writing is one of the most critical aspects of all web design. Most users scan online content, rather than carefully reading. Both websites are using advertising images as their content. Each image has a brief description about the product and the price of the product. People are naturally drawn to pictures, so gratuitous graphics can distract users from critical content but since these images are graphical links to the product it won’t be a problem for these websites.

“Because the decision to linger or leave is often made at the homepage, or after looking at one or two pages linked from the homepage, the homepage needs to communicate immediate value and enable visitors to find good, relevant “stuff” within seconds.”

Graphic ALT Text:
On bananarepublic.com the images on the home have not any ALT. the only images that has ALT are the navigation graphic buttons. On Victoriassecret.com all images have ALT info. ALT texts are beneficial for visually impaired users.

Advertising:
Both websites are e-commerce websites and both carries internal advertising, which is defined as specific advertising-shaped or advertising-looking areas that promoted the site’s own products or services. Each advertising links to a product. On Victoriassecret.com internal pages they use popup for internal advertisement.

Typography:
In Victoriassecret.com the font size of the Body Text is 11px/14px and in bananarepublic.com 9px. On the homepage ofbananarepublic.com most of the content is images. They have used graphic navigation buttons as link to internal pages.

Search box:
Search box should be represented as a box in which users could type a query. In Victoriassecret.com the search box is next to the logo and in the bananarepublic.com the search box is in top right corner.

Download time:
Bananarepublic.gap.com Homepage loading time is 2.59s and the Victoriassecret.com is 1.75s.The best download time for homepages is an average download time of 26 seconds.

Privacy Policy:
Both websites have a Privacy Policy. Having a privacy policy is another way to encourage the users to trust the site—since both websites collect user’s information for e-commerce an explicit policy communicates that the user’s privacy is taken seriously. This way user will trust to share their info.

Page Width/Length:
Both websites have frozen layout. The width of the both websites is 1920px.The homepage is vertical. Both websites had different viewport for mobile, iPad, and other devices.

Signup form:
Both websites are offering a signup form at the bottom of the page for promotions and newsletter. Along with this formbananarepublic.com is also having a privacy policy link presented to the users.

Window Title:
Each homepage needs a simple, straightforward window title. Titles play a critical role in bookmarking and finding the site with search engines if your website is not in the first 30 link the user will never find it. Victoriassecret.com has a unique title for each page butbananarepublic.com is using a generic such as category for the window title.

Color:
Text font is gray and black on white background. The Victoriassecret.com has pink for the title and headers.bananarepublic.com is using green for header and titles. High-contrast text and background colors help so that type is legible. Both website are using the best of white space.

Customization:
Victoriassecret.com can be customized in Spanish language. Butthebananarepublic.com is only presented in English

Author: Shabnam Paidarfard

Work cited:
“Pingdom Tools.” Pingdom Tools. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/>.
Nielsen & Tahir. Homepage Usability: 50 Websites DeconstructedThe Art Institutes. Web. 21 April 2013 <http://digitalbookshelf.aionline.edu/books/055858036X/id/fm10lev2sec6>.