This document summarizes the results of a heuristic evaluation of the YouTube website. It identifies 4 violations of usability principles: 1) a lack of consistency in showing subscription recommendations, 2) redundant navigation buttons, 3) lack of error prevention when deleting messages, and 4) help buttons placed at the bottom of pages rather than top where they are more visible. Suggestions are provided for improving each issue, such as adding subscription recommendations consistently, removing redundant buttons, adding delete message confirmations, and moving help buttons to the top of pages.

1. P14: Heuristic Evaluation
Kimmy’s RJ!
Decided to do in ppt format so that you can see clearly what I am
talking about in the website.
Chosen Website: YOUTUBE

2. 1st Violation:
Consistency and Standards
The ‘More
from
Subscription
’ section is
available at
pages like
these.
THIS IS A PAGE OF A VIDEO UPLOADED BY A YOUTUBE ACCOUNT THAT I AM SUBSCRIBED TO.

3. -CONTD-
The ‘More from Subscription’
is NOT shown.
This shows that there is no
consistency in this function
about the website.
Suggestion: Add in ‘More
from Subscriptions’ to pages
that are not subscribed by
the user’s account, and
rename it as ‘From your
Subscriptions’.
That way Youtube can get its
users to stay updated with
the latest uploads from their
THIS IS A PAGE OF A VIDEO UPLOADED BY A YOUTUBE
subscriptions.
ACCOUNT THAT I AM NOT SUBSCRIBED TO.

4. 2nd Violation:
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Repeated buttons like ‘My Channel’ and ‘Subscriptions’.
It’s redundant to repeat the buttons.
Suggestion to improve is to remove ‘My Channel’ from the bottom navigation,
and remove ‘Subscriptions’ from the top navigation. That way, it will be less
confusing, and will have more relevance to the category they are found in.

5. 3rd Violation:
Error Prevention
There is no prompt to ask the user if they want to confirm to delete
the message. Once the delete button is clicked, the message is
automatically deleted.
Suggestion is to add in a prompt to users to ask them to confirm
their action. This will prevent error, and enable the user to track
back and edit their action.

6. 4th Violation:
Help & Documentation (good, but can be improved)
Efficient Help tool button located at the
bottom of every page in the website,
fixed and placed next to the footer of the
website.
Good usage of drop down menu list.
Convenient for new users to use as well,
because there’s no need to navigate off
from the page.
Problem: It’s not obvious enough. Users
have to scroll all the way down just to get
to the help button.
Suggestion is to place the help tool
button at the top of the page. That way,
new users will know that there’s the help
tool button if they need it.