Study Guide for the Book Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

Exercise 1: Evaluate the redesigned www.bbc.co.uk homepage

Goal of exercise
Evaluate a redesigned homepage and calculate two scores: the percentage of good features retained and the percentage of usability problems fixed in the design.

Instructions

Compare the following redesigned homepage for the BBC website to the BBC homepage and commentary in the book.
For each positive design element that the redesign retains, score the design one point towards the positive percentage. If they keep only part of the positive feature, count it as half a point. See "Tips" below for list of positive comments.
For each usability problem that the redesign fixes, score one point toward the usability issues fixed. If they only partially fixed the problem, count half a point towards the total. See "Tips" below for the list of usability issues.
Add up the points for positive features retained in the design. Divide the total by 8 (total possible points). This gives you the percentage of good features kept in the design.
Add up the points for usability problems fixed in the redesign. Divide the total by 28 (total possible usability issues). This gives you the percentage of usability problems fixed in the design.
Finally, compare your scores with our solution. (Please do not follow this link until after you have scored the redesign on your own.)

Tips

Some comments have both negative and positive remarks, as outlined below:

Positive aspects. 8 possible points for keeping these design goodies in the redesign:
Window title, red numbered comments 1, 8, 9, 17, 19, 23, and 24.
Usability problems. 28 possible points for fixing these design flaws in the redesign:
Window title, tagline, red numbered comments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (2 points possible), 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29.

The numbers refer to the red "bubbles" in the analysis of the old www.bbc.co.uk homepage in Homepage Usability (shown on pages 84 and 86 in the English edition).

Screenshot of the redesigned BBC homepage

Please compute your scores based on the following screen capture, which we used in deriving our solution. Of course, you can also look at the live www.bbc.co.uk site, but you should score the screenshot that's included here, in order to best compare your score with our results.

Screenshot of BBC's homepage on December 18, 2001