Individual Website Analysis

von: Simone Weinert

Introduction 3

1. General design:  4

1.1 Deutschland Tourismus: www.deutschland-tourismus.de 7
1.2 40fieber: www.40fieber.com 9
1.3 Sunset Lounge: www.sunset-lounge.net 11

2. Functional design  13

2.1 Google: www.google.de  16
2.2 Auf nach MV: www.auf-nach-mv.de 18
2.3 Race cars: www.race-cars.com  20

3. Communication tools 21

3.1 Holzhausennetz: www.hh.fh-stralsund.de 23
3.2 Uboot: www.uboot.de 24
3.3 Technoguide: www.technoguide.de 26

4. Organization of communities  27

4.1 Calypse: www.calypse.de 29
4.2 Ciao: www.ciao.com 31
4.3 Nbchat: www.nbchat.de 33

5. Payment functionalities  34

5.1 Esprit: www.esprit.de  36
5.2 Floridee: www.blumen-verschicken.de 37
5.3 Ryanair: www.ryanair.com  38

Summary:  41

Sources:  42

Introduction

As the famous saying states: “Time is money”. That is especially true in our daily life. If people are looking for information or a special product on the web they are eager to find it quick and easy. If they need lots of time to figure out how to use a website, they conclude that it is not worth the time and they will leave this side. Because there is always another site in the web that can assure the information needed in shorter times.

According to that fact it is understandable that usability is an important factor for websites. Furthermore it is clear that “users experience the usability of a site before they have committed to using it and before they have spent any money on potential purchases.”1 So designing a good and usable website is not only a tool of competition, but also an investment into further purchases.

There are thousands of websites on the Internet wooing for the users to visit them. Some get plenty of guests while others are struggling around with just a handful of them. So what is good and what is bad about websites? To answer the author of this paper wants to analyze several sites and give examples for each case. While doing that the author wants to concentrate on five areas:

1. General design
2. Functional design
3. Communication tools
4. Organization of communities
5. Payment functionalities

1. General design:

Most users won’t visit a site just to enjoy the design of it. Having this thought in mind it is clear that the first impression is crucial in establishing a user base. A wellstructured, highly usable website gives an advantage and is very important. Page layout is concerned with the immediately available “look and feel” of the site. So the main goal of the design of web pages should be simplicity. A simple page ensures that page titles are recognized as page titles, and that information contained within the page is salient to the user. For the most part users will focus on the content, everything else around is just a backdrop. So the design should lay back behind the content, because that is what counts.2

Websites have to provide information. These information have to be presented in an way, that they are within easy reach. A well designed website stands out by the fact that the content is callable without problems and in short time.3 Pages load topdown. This means that all relevant information should be placed at the top of the website. If users know right away whether or not they are on the right page they can react on that easily. So an opening paragraph that is highly descriptive of the page content or a quick bulleted list of the major topics of the website is much more useful then anything else. The quicker the user can recognize whether the page is important for him/her the more usable the website is. So the top of the site should provide the essential of the whole content and therefore the space should be used wisely.4 Although simplicity is very important the creativity and functionality of your website will also determine how well you compete in your particular market. The customer should be impressed the first time – and every time – he/she visits the site. So while building a successful site it is important to learn to maintain a streamlined site that is informative, easy to navigate, and does not burden the customer with unnecessary stuff. So whatever a website creator does, the site should always get right to the point.5

[...]

1 Nielsen, p. 10
2 compare to: Brinck et. al., pp. 180
3 compare to: Kommer/Mersin, p.2o
4 compare to: Brinck et. al.; pp 207
5 compare to: Cataudella, p. 144