The following display is a commercial website advertising the product, Pine-Sol, a brand of detergent. Following are the main features of the webpage:
1. Each block of text or images enclosed in frames, with rounded corners, are clickable. That is, if users click on these specific frames, a new tab will open within the web browser to display a page of information.
2. Note that there are no horizontal and vertical scroll bars. These have been disabled by the developers. The intent is to provide a ‘click-free' (i.e. users do not need to click the mouse button) scrolling experience. To enable the page to scroll towards an intended direction, users will need to hover their mouse pointer over one of the four arrowheads to indicate the desired direction. The four arrowheads are visible on each of the four edges of the webpage
3. Once the webpage is set scrolling in any of the desired direction, it will not stop until the mouse pointer is moved towards and hovered over the centre of the webpage.
4. The following view shown in the figure below depicts only 10% of the total coverage of the webpage. To view the complete layout of the webpage, a user will need to scroll four or five screens horizontally and one two screens vertically.
5. The function to zoom-in or zoom-out for each page of this website have been disabled by the developers.
Questions
Attempt to address and answer the following questions in relation to the above website. Your answers should adhere to principles of human-computer interaction. Try to avoid providing answers that are based on your personal opinion. Your answers must be supported by scholarly findings, that is, you will need to support your assertions with references to scholarly publications. Do not reference your answers from the Wikipedia.
A. The Pine-Sol website have been designed to be manipulated using a pointing device, such as a mouse. Suggest an alternative interaction style that may be more appropriate for this website. Provide two reasons to support your suggestion.
B. Identify two appropriate techniques to evaluate the usability of the Pine-Sol website. Elaborate on each of the techniques with relevance to the the website.
C. What improvements can be made to the Pine-Sol website? Provide a reason or reasons to support your suggestion.
D. Based on your suggestions in C, illustrate an improved version of the Pine-Sol website. You do not need to develop a program or website. Present your new design as a paper based prototype.