Date my school evaluation

Usability Analysis

Overall the website is well designed both Aesthetically and functionally. First of all, their interface makes me feel clean and reliable. In addition, all the features are well organized and clearly instructed. And this is also what we want to achieved in our website. As a social website, I like the way they make their detail personal profile very detail, however, we might not need that much information for us. What I do not like about this website is their charging policy, you need to pay for doing anything, and they do not even offer free trial. This may stop many potential users to start using this website.

Visibility of system status

The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

• ·      The website require school email when register and use it as a basic way to informed the users about what is going on.
• ·      Once you register successfully, you will get a email notification
• ·      When the user is online, the page will have pop-up windows on the right corner when someone visits his/her profile.
• ·      The web page will have a pop-up window on the left corner if someone sends an online chat to you.
• ·      The website will let the users know immediately through email either someone visit profiles or send messages.
• ·      The user can personalize the setting for email notification.
• ·      All the latest activity of people will update instantly on the page.
• ·      The website list the latest visitors upon homepage

Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

•  ·   The website is highly user oriented without any confusing term used when either in registration or usage.
• ·      Online web chat directly allow one user talk with another user directly
• ·      Personalized and visualized setting for classification of personal interest help to make friend searching similar to real-word.
• ·      Personal image is highlighted as a first impression for other users, which is quite similar to real world.
• ·      The icons used on the web page like camera, eye, envelop are almost common sense to everyone, which are very daily and easy to understand.
• ·      Different kinds of information are showed in an order of importance, which is logical.
• ·      Great focus is put on privacy, the user can deicide how much they want themselves to be exposed to the public, thus can be easily accepted by everyone.
• ·      As the same way in real world, you can prevent someone from disturbing your by put them in the block, which can be set easily with the top bar. This is quite necessary for a social website since personal preference is the key part of such web platforms.
• ·      The top function bar lists the main factors of a social network in an order, which is the same in the real world namely the people, activity and yourself.
• ·      As in the traditional conventions and logic, you are reasonably accessible to those who you are acquaint or around you.
• ·      On other users’ homepage, their basic and primary information is listed clearly and precisely.

User control and freedom

Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

• ·      You can save a person with a single operation by clicking on the star. And you can cancel this operation by easily clicking it once again.
• ·      The slip switch buttons are designed to let the user to change settings easily. 
• ·      User can block their account at any time, and come back at any time with information unblocked simultaneously as well.
• ·      There is no undo button or confirmation for profile edit
• ·      Re-edition of answered question in profile is available with a 24hours time limit, which is very inconvenient. If the user chose an embraced answer by mistake they will have to let it be there for 24 hour.
• ·      Once you pay the money, you cannot refund it. There is no free trail.
• ·      Once you have viewed someone’s homepage you cannot remove the activity and it will list on that person’s homepage.
• ·      Once you have sent a message to someone, you cannot cancel it.
• ·      There is always an emergency exit if you have been linked to some sub-webpage of this website.
• ·      You can go back to your own homepage whenever you want by clicking on your personal image icon on the top right, which is quite convenient.

Consistency and standards

Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

• ·      The website use strict and clear term to standardize the actions.
• ·      The classification of each function is done well. For example the block function list all the possible setting you can do with to prevent unnecessary disturb or mal-operation.
• ·      The three filter tags of activities eliminate the situation that the users may keep reading the same thing but can not find what they are really interested in.
• ·      The filter of the “browse” function is well organized. The options are mutually exclusive which will prevent confusion and misunderstanding.
• ·      The “stats” function list the hotness ranking of the user with different tables and charts, so the users do not need to read
• ·      You can see people visit you on your homepage but you need pay to see who they are which is very confused.
• ·      The “check-them- out” list is not precisely defined. The user cannot set up the criteria for this list.
• ·      IM HISTORY lists all the online chat messages you received.
• ·       The in-box clearly lists the text messages you received
• ·      The sent-box clearly list messages you sent to others, separate those from what you received.

Error prevention

Even better than good error messages is a careful design, which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

• ·      One school email address can be used to register only once in case of unexpected situation.
• ·      You cannot send a message to anyone else only if you have logged on.
• ·      Before you pay for the charge, the website let you to confirm it.
• ·      You will log out once you click the button without any confirmation.
• ·      You can save a person with a single click of a star icon without any notification, which might be a mal-operation.
• ·      You will send a message to the public without any confirmation message.
• ·      When editing the personal file, it will not ask you to confirm your action. It will just be saved automatically.
• ·      When you answer questions, your answer will be recorded automatically and unable to change with a very long time limit.
• ·      You can block your account without getting any confirm message, which might ends up be a mal-operation.
• ·      You can send an image by mistake without any confirm information.

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

• ·      There is always a help link in the bottom of the website which is convenient.
• ·      There are always prompt when you click on a complex feature of the website.
• ·      All the text messages you received are recorded in the in-box.
• ·      All the text messages you sent are recorded in the sent-box.
• ·      All the people you viewed are listed in the view list.
• ·      All the people viewed you are both listed in the homepage and the view list.
• ·      The IM history records all the online chat messages.
• ·      All the people you saved are listed in the save page.
• ·      All the people you saved are listed in the save page.
• ·      When you pay the charge, there are clear instructions to each choice.
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Flexibility and efficiency of use

Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

• ·      The user can choose what gender they are interested in and what can of relationship they are looking for when they register, which make their experience way more efficient.
• ·      Allow both generally browse and specific search
• ·      The “around you” tag allows the first time user get start easily.
• ·      The “saved” tag help experienced user find the people they feel interested in efficiently.
• ·      Offers different payment choice, the first time user can chose to buy a month to get start and the experience users can buy the whole year for discount.
• ·      The user can either use the blur search or use the filter for advanced search
• ·       The user have the flexibly to only provide some basic personal information to get start
• ·      Novice users can just use the general settings while the expert users can tailor the privacy settings according to their own preference.
• ·      New users can use the basic profile as the basic introduction to themselves and meanwhile the experienced users can keep updating their profile via adding descriptions or answer related questions of different field

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Dialogues should not contain information, which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

• ·      The overall design is very pure and simple
• ·      The website looks very clean with the white background.
• Using grey and blue as dominate color help people build a connection with words such as reliable, clean, etc.
• ·      The tags are all short and easy to understand
• ·      Some important features are highlighted with different colors.
• ·      Only small amount of color is using, which are eye catching enough but not overwhelming
• ·      Filter bars are hided to keep a clean looking
• ·      Some simple icon is used like camera, message, eye, etc. to make the information visually stronger and easier to be found.
• ·      Only a profile picture and basic information are listed on the “browse” page for every one to keep the page very organized
• ·      Though a whole lot of messages are posted at the same time, they are not displayed in a very crowd way. The space leave for each message make it comfortable to read.
• ·      Different fonts are used wisely to provide different kind of information, which help eliminate further word description.
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Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

• ·      When registration as a student, if an invalid school webmail address is provided, it will give plain language to inform you rather than an error webpage.
• ·      When you register with the same webmail address again, it will inform you that there is already an account rather than a code error notification such as the data is already recorded in the database system.
• ·      If you do not receive the confirmation email when registration, you have an alternative choice to give a feedback to the system.
• ·      When you log on, if you enter user name or password wrong, it will point it out for you rather than an error notification page.
• ·      When download app for mobile device, if you have downloaded a wrong edition, the system will notice you about it.
• ·      When paying the charge, if you input the wrong information, it will inform you in details.
• ·      There exists a bug that if I log on the Facebook of my friend’s account the website will share it in his or her Facebook without any confirmation process.
• ·      When registration, if you forget to enter some basic information, the system will inform you what parts you missed.
• ·      If some parts cannot be seen, the system will provide guide for the reason of it. For example, you need to pay for it.
• ·      If you logged out but with some pages still there, when you clicked them again, you are required to log in again rather than sending an error page.
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Help and documentation

Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

• ·      When you first use the website, more details and instruction will be given than regular log in afterward.
• ·      A quick link to the help document is provided in the bottom of the homepage.
• ·      Some prompt will be provided to instruct the users what to do
• ·      The introduction and prompt are displayed in different characters and colors, which are more easily to be recognized.
• ·      For some blank to input by users, there will be some default message with different characters and color to let you know what it is.
• ·      There are some settings that cannot be used for certain reasons without any prompt.
• ·      When you want to change some basic information such as name or birth data which can be changed once per year, the system will inform you to reconsider you decision.
• ·      When you change the answers to the questions provided by the website, it will inform you about the time limit of changing your answer.
• ·      A help list will be at the left bottom to show whether the people you have saved is online. You check it for help at any time when you want to find whether someone is online.
• ·      If you have not finished some basic information, there will be a short cut and a help prompt on the front page to guide you to finish it.

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