Process of capturing and annotating site maps
For this part of Project 2, I took an integrated approach to several of the required research tasks. I started by learning about Don Norman’s 7 principles of design – discoverability, feedback, affordances, signifiers, constraints, mapping, and consistency.
I then created a site map showing the standard user journey or “red route” through the e-commerce website I’m evaluating. This involved identifying the main pages and sections a typical user would visit to browse products, view details, add to cart, and purchase.
This is the first initial heuristic markup before evaluation, this was nice fast and easy to do especially with an iPad to jot down notes.
After mapping the existing site flow, I annotated the pages and screens with the 7 design principles in mind. I marked up areas that effectively demonstrated the principles with green stickies. Orange stickies indicated where the principles could be better implemented. Red was reserved for major issues violating those rules of UX design.
A side note, Affordances and Mapping were not covered as I could not, at my current level, find examples of this on the e-commerce site and I did not want to crowbar them in just because. As I grow as a UX designer I hope I can more easily see and address more of the principles than I am now.
This heuristic analysis and markup using Norman’s concepts provided valuable insights into the pain points and positives of the current user experience. Armed with these findings, I was able to create an improved site map with proposed changes to address the UX flaws uncovered.
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