Applying 25-point website usability checklist on "www.anything.lk"

I’m quite sure that you’ve visited uncountable number of websites in your lifetime. Some of them are easy to deal with, while some of them are very very cumbersome to even go through. From my second blog post, I would be critically analyzing a Sri Lankan website based on the 25-point website usability checklist developed by “user effect”. The website I chose for my analysis is www.anything.lk.

I thought of starting my analysis by giving you a brief introduction about Anything.lk. Needless to say that Anything.lk is Sri Lanka’s leading daily deal site which was launched in June 2011. Now it is the largest and No.1 daily deal site having more than 150,000 visitors per day. Anything.lk took a smart move to diversify from the daily deals market, which they control like 90% of, to e-commerce, as well as events, travel, lingerie and delivering Litro gas. They are giving big discounts such as over 50% to potential customers while for the merchants who offer products or services, it’s an opportunity to attract new customers who they hope will return after a satisfying first experience. According to the information available on December 2012, they have an e-mail database of over 280,000, more than 185,000 Facebook Fans and 30,000 regular buyers with over 60,000 deals sold.

Now it’s time to analyze it using 25-point website usability checklist. I’ll be analyzing it point by point for your convenience. The 25 point checklist is divided into 4 roughly equal sections, namely Accessibility, Identity, Navigation, and Content. Well, let’s start.

Accessibility

1.   Site load‐time is reasonable: Load time of Anything.lk is fairly reasonable when it compared with other daily deal sites such as http://www.lancoupon.lk, http://www.dailydeals.lk/ and http://www.wow.lk/

2.   Adequate text‐to‐background contrast: If you visit Anything.lk, you could see that it has white text in black background. Those 2 colours are very contrasting and could view the text clearly.

3.   Font size/spacing is easy to read: Headings are in slightly big font compared to the details in the advertisements. Even the price after the discount is clearly showed in yellow in the dark grey background. Spacing is also fine.

4.   Flash & add‐ons are used sparingly: No flash or add-ons are used in Anything.lk.

5.   Images have appropriate ALT tags: When you move the cursor on top of each deal (without clicking) you could see a small description of that particular deal and it helps to digest it within a few seconds.

6.   Site has custom not‐found/404 page: A customized page is available.

Identity

7.   Company logo is prominently placed: As you can see, company logo is placed on the   upper left corner of the page in white font with a blue outline. I think it’s identifiable very without difficulty.

8.   Tagline makes company’s purpose clear: Well, in this case, I don’t see a tagline in Anything.lk. But from the tabs placed in the upper strip of the page such as daily deals, Store, Events, Travel and etc, we could clearly identify that it’s a page having daily deals.

9.   Home‐page is digestible in 5 seconds: Of course, it is. It has 3 deals in a horizontal row having around 24 deals altogether divided by the sections such as daily deals, events, travel, store, big heart, Litro gas and book store.

10. Clear path to company information: It has a clear path to company information, but the link is placed on the bottom of the page. It would have been better if they could place it on top of the page.

11. Clear path to contact information: Same goes with the contact information as it is placed on the bottom of the page. But in the middle of the page, when you scroll down you’ll see a tab dedicated to “customer support” saying; For queries beyond office hours, weekends and holidays, kindly email us at support@anything.lk.

Navigation

12. Main navigation is easily identifiable: Main navigation is so easy as the main tabs namely, Daily deals, Store, Events, Travel, WOW Mall, Gas and Books are placed visibly on the top strip of the page. Even in the bottom of the page, tabs such as Company, Help, Follow us, Other, Global Partner, brands of the credit cards they’re accepting and mobile payment method are clearly shown.

13. Navigation labels are clear & concise: The above mentioned tabs in the upper strip are labeled properly in white font in the black and grey background. Tabs in the bottom of the page are in blue colour and having logos of all credit cards they’re accepting plus with the mobile partner.

14. Number of buttons/links is reasonable: Yes it is. There are only 7 buttons/tabs in the upper strip of the page as I mentioned above. When it comes to deals shown, the summary of each deal is shown precisely and if you want to know more about a particular deal, there’s a button called “View Deal” at the end of each deal.

15. Company logo is linked to home‐page: This is also yes. When you’re navigating through deals and if you suddenly want to go to the home page, just a single click on the company logo which is at the top left of the page would take you to the home page soon.

16. Links are consistent & easy to identify: There are links for each and every category (Daily deals, Store, Events, Travel, WOW Mall, Big Heart, Gas and Books) as well as for each and every deal. There are also links for the Anythink.lk facebook fan page and the news in Daily Mirror.

17. Site search is easy to access: Well, in this case, a tab called “site search” is not in Anything.lk. I think it’s a drawback here.

Content

18. Major headings are clear & descriptive: As I pointed out earlier. Main tabs (Daily deals, Store, Events, Travel, WOW Mall, Gas and Books) are shown in White in the dark grey background to easily identify.

19. Critical content is above the “fold”: Apart from approximately 24 small deals, main deals are displayed right under the company logo. They are also highlighted by changing the deals from 5 seconds to 5 seconds.

20. Styles & colors are consistent: When you click on a deal, the amount you could save is always in blue colour and the amount you could buy that particular good is in green colour. So the details of deals are easily recognizable.

21. Emphasis (bold, etc.) is used sparingly: Main tabs are in bold to emphasize the importance and to draw attention. On top of the “WOW Mall” tab there’s a label in red to show that it’s a new tab. In the top right corner of the page, there’s an animation about “coming soon” deals.

22. Ads & pop‐ups are unobtrusive: There are no pop-ups in Anything.lk but could see ads in terms of deals.

23. Main copy is concise & explanatory: Of course, when you have a glimpse of the home page, you could see that this page is all about best deals available in Sri Lanka.

24. URLs are meaningful & user‐friendly: The URL is also the name of the company which is www.anyhthing.lk

    25. HTML page titles are explanatory: Page titles (in the <TITLE> tag) should be descriptive, unique, and have appropriate number of keywords for the visitors to search. In this case if you right click on the page and click on “view page source” you could see  the title tag as “<title>Best Daily Deals | Best Online Shopping Experience with Anything.lk | No. 1 Daily Deals Website</title>” and it is descriptive enough. 

So according to my opinion, Anything.lk can be categorized as one of best websites in Sri Lanka even though it has minor drawbacks. It has also received the silver award for the Best Sri Lankan website in 2012 and Gold winner of Best E-commerce and advertising website in 2012. Well, that’s it for today; would like to know your opinions as well.