Essay 1: UX/UI Analysis
Introduction
This design analysis investigates the UX and UI design of the KAMERAZ website. This analysis aims to breakdown the design choices of the website and whether they lead to a good user experience or not. As this website is for a store, part of this analysis is whether the website would allow users to find and purchase products with ease, while avoiding any forms of predatory behaviour from the store.
Website Breakdown and Analysis
Main Store
The main store covers most of the page, with specific tabs for the different faucets of what equipment people might need, with each tab having subcategories for even more specific needs. The user can also use the heading of a tab to see everything under that category. This design works well in this context, as the main categories for the equipment, and then the subcategories lead the user to what they want with ease, as well as allow them to browse through stock generally.
The design of the pages’ featuring stock is identical throughout, with filters on the left and options for how many products to display per page, what to sort by, and an option between a grid and list view.
The filter tab has a variety of choices, brand and then type of product, such as a specific type of camera. These options of type are also accessible from the drop-down tabs for the different categories. The filter also allows for a price range to be declared and to filter if the object is currently stocked or not. These options allow the user to specifically declare what they are looking for, which is important in the field of photography, as camera and lenses have proprietary connectors.
The different view options feel underdeveloped. The two options are grid and list. Grid shows more products together, while list spreads it out more. However, despite the more space the list option must use, it only has two additions when compared to the grid mode. These being “Add to cart” and “Quick View”. The former simply adds the product to your virtual cart, while the latter gives a pop up with more information. This tab features the rest of the product pictures, the same “Add to cart” option and “Buy Now”.
When the product out of stock, the “Add to cart” is greyed out and unusable. There is an exception to this, being that if the product is available for pre-order, the “Add to cart” option will be the same as if it were in stock. The only way to know that a product is only available for pre-order is to go to the actual page for the product, or to view your cart after adding one of these products. The page does warn you when checking your cart about the pre-order item however, that it will delay your delivery until the product comes back into stock, which is a welcome communication.
Used Gear
The used gear is just one page, still featuring the same filter, sort, and view tabs. However, this page features stock from all the categories, from lenses to cameras, from flashes to chargers. This page does have a flaw, in that you can only filter by brand and not by category, however there are far less products here, so it is less of an issue. There is no indicator of the quality of the second-hand goods however, which is bad practice for such a type of product.
Flea Market
The flea market, called “FOTOBUZZAH!”, page is dedicated to when the next flea market is set to be. This page just shows the dates, type of products to expect, some photos of previous markets and finally any very specials deals being featured. This page is simplistic and could use more details, however, the idea of the flea market is that it is cheaper than the used equipment and is first come first serve.
Mobile Web Design
The mobile web page has similar features to the desktop version, with some notable differences. The user cannot view broad categories but must go into the specific subcategories. Additionally, the list view is missing the “Quick View” option. These differences are serviceable; however, this website commits a major sin. On the “FOTOBUZZAH!” page the main heading block for the page features white text on a yellow background, which is unreadable.
Interactive Design within this website
This web page features basic interactive elements, search functionality, drop downs and dynamically changing pages to fit filters. These elements may be simple, but they do work effectively and as expected. These choices are ethically designed, as they do not misguide the user, nor do they push the user to a specific more expensive product. The website makes and effort to warn the users when their products will be pre-order and will take longer to be delivered and suggests doing two orders to ensure your non pre-order products get to you quicker.
Conclusion
KAMERAZ has an effective website for its use case, with simplistic design and usability, the website makes effective use of UX and UI design to ensure that the user is not lost nor misguided. Each page effectively fulfils its roll and the page does not prey on its customers and user.