Sulekha.com Website Usability Study

www.peppersquare.com Understanding Sulekha Online media for news and social networking through blogs, images etc. • Online and mobile portal for local commerce - integrating yellow pages and classifieds • Objective Aiming to provide an insight on how sulekha.com website can improve its performance in terms of users experience, functionality, etc. pepper square brought out a list of issues where sulekha.com requires revamp. In order to enhance users experience, and website credibility and usability the site needs to be restructured completely. The site provides adequate information but the arrangement of the information on the site creates clutter and the information needs to be reorganized and positioned well. Users Profile Data are collected from 3 different users, working in different departments of pepper square, 1. Age 32 with over 15 years of experience with various online mediums 2. Age 30 with over 6 years of experience in search engine optimization 3. Age 25 with over 3 years of experience in content writing and information architecture for websites Findings Though approximately 4,000,000 users visit www.sulekha.com per month, the organization needs to enhance users experience. We have brought out the issues where sulekha.com needs improvement. 1. Users find it difficult to navigate through the site as different navigation tabs and links are provided for same page, which creates confusion 2. Home page and inner pages are overloaded by navigational elements 3. Important links (Advertise with us, Press, Media, SulekhaB2B) appear at the bottom of the page. They remain unnoticed. 4. Lack of consistency: Each page appears differently; colours, features, navigations and elements on the pages are different from each other. Overview pages of Real Estate, Buy and sell, Cars and Bikes contain a heading o “Let Sulekha get it for you!”, where as Home Services page (http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/bangalore/home-services/532.htm) contains two different headings “Looking for Home Services?” and “ Don't search. Let Sulekha get the right Home Services to call you”. Sulekha.com Usability study Page 1 of 10

www.peppersquare.com Buy and sell page contains a “Most Popular Items” table, where as Real Estate, o Cars and Bikes pages don’t showcase that. Design of the Search bar: On some pages Google Serach is featured, on other o pages Sulekha search is featured. Different colours and designs are used for Search bar on different pages Lack of consistency in naming conventions. E.g. Cars and Bikes , Buy & Sell , o Computers & Mobiles Appearance and treatment • Navigations for classifieds and yellow pages, and news, blogs, photos etc. appear similar. News and blogs are treated as classified by the users. E.g. Treatment of Expression tab (links to the Featured Blog page) is similar to Travel, Food and Mobile (link to respective local business providers’ pages) at the bottom of the page. Positioning of the highlights • Highlights lost their appeal as they are placed in the middle of the body with other navigations. Users do not always notice them. Customer care response Customer care team responses immediately, but representatives are not well trained. In response to the query for buying an apartment, one of the representatives asks irrelevant questions; some of them are listed below: Sulekha representative: What is your budget to buy a home? User: 10 Sulekha representative: 10 thousand? Sulekha representative: Are you also interested in buying a bike or a car? User: No, not now Sulekha representative: You can advertise with Sulekha by posting your ads! User: I don’t want to sell but buy Sulekha representative talking…(Going off from the subject) User (Hangs up…) Sulekha.com Usability study Page 2 of 10

www.peppersquare.com Visual View 1. http://www.sulekha.com/ Tag line has lost The two navigations Instant responses, Get it button and its appeal, looks Post a Free Ad button link to same page i.e. like an http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/find-it-on- advertisement sulekha.htm?source=sulhome Post a Free Ad button appears at the bottom of the page as well. This part of the page is Treatment of Blog tab is similar to overloaded by navigations, Food, Movies, Travel etc. creating clutter. Sulekha.com Usability study Page 3 of 10

These highlights have lost their appeal as they are positioned at the middle of www.peppersquare.com the page The Viral has lost its appeal as it is positioned in the middle of the page These highlights have lost Important navigation their appeal as they are “Advertise with us”, positioned at the bottom of appearing at the bottom of the page the page, is not readable Recommendation: Tagline needs to be placed more prominently. It carries the brand image of Sulekha. • Sulekha viral “1000 year old lost art of…” Sulekha viral “1000 year old Lost Art…”is one of the • most important marketing tools for Sulekha and can be used more efficiently on the page. Navigations and highlights need to be rearranged and redesigned. Selected tab can have a • different colour from the tabs not selected by the users. Highlights look like navigation tabs, need to be redesigned and can be placed more prominently. Sulekha.com Usability study Page 4 of 10

www.peppersquare.com Google Search has lost its appeal. Moreover 2. http://blogs.sulekha.com/ Google Search is appearing only for Blogs page, lacking consistency. On clicking “Start Blogging” button and “My Blog” navigation tab, same page appears. “Featured posts” and “Recent posts” are automatically extracted In this section Associates’ logo here, though Recent Posts and appears as links, on clicking Blog Print Featured navigation tabs are “contest guidelines” appear. present. Recommendation: Instead of partner’s logo contest name would convey the proper message. Logos can be • placed in a different manner. Search option is not consistent throughout the site. There should be a prominent Search bar • placed properly (preferably Right-Top of all the pages). Featured posts and Recent posts are automatically extracted on the page, therefore no need • of navigation tabs for these two section Sulekha.com Usability study Page 5 of 10

www.peppersquare.com 3. http://blogs.sulekha.com/tags/tag.aspx?tag=blogbuzz • The logo is not readable. • Purpose of placing Team Sulekha and the logo is not understood Recommendation: Logo should be positioned more prominently • Blog buzz (Team Sulekha and the logo) should be featured on the particular Blog page. On • this page only blog headlines and brief can be featured. Sulekha.com Usability study Page 6 of 10

www.peppersquare.com 4. http://www.sulekha.com/network/register.aspx “Select your city” doesn’t appear unless you provide the postal code. Recommendation: Select Your City option can be placed just above the Postal Code with a drop-down menu. • User will be able to understand better what he/she needs to provide. Sulekha.com Usability study Page 7 of 10

www.peppersquare.com 5. http://sutapapsq.sulekha.com/dashboard.htm The colour scheme of the page is a combination of Yellow and Brown, though the tab shows only Brown colour. Many different elements appear in this This highlight doesn’t serve the purpose section. as it has lost readability. • Jayaram47 asks • Ebony for eclectic Indian cuisine • To get daily astro update your DOB “Update your DOB” highlight has lost “Update your DOB” highlight has lost appeal appeal Sulekha.com Usability study Page 8 of 10

www.peppersquare.com So much of space is left unused while important highlight “Also on Sulekha” is placed at the bottom of the page. Recommendation: Page needs to be redesigned in terms of • o Colour Appearance o Uniformity o Usability o Sulekha.com Usability study Page 9 of 10

www.peppersquare.com 6. http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/find-it-on-sulekha.htm?source=sulhome Entering food as a keyword displays various other suggestions like Used home electronic appliances and Home appliances services Recommendation Keyword suggestion should be related to the keywords provided by the user. • This page looks like a different site, needs to be redesigned in terms of • o Colour Appearance o Uniformity o Usability o Sulekha.com Usability study Page 10 of 10

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Sulekha.com Website Usability Study

by Muki Regunathan

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Sulekha.com Website Usability Study Document Transcript