Eat Green Tea - Heuristics Review

Visibility of system status

The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

- There is no indicator in the upper nav tabs to show which section tab you are on.  Differing color/shading or some sort of "this is selected" indicator would benefit the user in knowing where they are in the site structure. SEV:Med

-"this is selected" indicators would be helpful in the Benefits sections left nav bar.  Also, the "sub-articles" would be more connected to their category header if the left bar functioned in an accordion style menu, that when the category is selected the it woud "open" to revel the articles for the category.  Currently, when selected the articles list appears at the bottom, thus a jointed relationship between the two.  SEV:Med

Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

-footnotes on bottom of benefits provide http address of sources/references, but those links are not hyperlinked - should be hyperlinked.  SEV:High

User control and freedom

Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

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Consistency and standards

Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

- some discrepancy between the navigation tabs and the page headers:

Green Tea Recipes <--> Tea Recipes Category

Buy Edible Green Tea <--> What's New Here

Green Tea Benefits <--> Tea Benefits Category

While they are similar, should normalize naming to ensure the user knows that they landed where they clicked.  SEV:High

Error prevention

Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Flexibility and efficiency of use

Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

- Search does not work or does not provide full site search.  Tried to search "heart" and returned no results - even though 'heart' is a benefits category. May be just a function of better tagging of articles/items.  SEV: High

- having full tab bar at the top of the site allows people to directly got to information, especially returning customers can go right to the buy section.

- providing an 'account' functionality is also great accelerator - saves entry time on address etc on returning customers.

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

- the left bar plays an odd role in the site depending on the page.  Usually it is just promoting a free cookbook - with a single link.  Based on the site template the remaining space is basically un-used.  Could have better use of space by eliminating the column except for on the Benefits page where it is employed to provide quick locations of benefits articles.  SEV:High

- the upper (tabbed) nav bar and the lower nav bar seem to have similar navigation items, but presented in a different order.  My inclination would be to use the lower bar for "secondary" items and leave the upper tabs for primary site content  SEV:Low

- left nav bar has inconsistent color throughout site - blue, green and purple.   Be more consistent with green throughout the rest of the site.  SEV: Med


- There is a large amount of readable content, but font seems small.  SEV:Med

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

- clicking 'Advanced Search' results in broken image icon, no other messaging around errors.  Sev:High

Help and documentation

Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.