Usability evaluation of E-grocery : From a user-centered perspective

Purpose: The purpose of our thesis is to evaluate the usability of e-grocery sites, by evaluatingthe (1) navigation, how easy is it for the user to find what they need either by menunavigation or internal search facility? (2) Content, how informative is the content on thesite, is it up to date and easy to comprehend? (3) Interface, how appealing is the web sitesinterface and graphical use to the customer? The three will be contributing to good or poorusability. Background: E-commerce has become more used by people, and some argue that the optionof e-commerce is not longer an option but a must. With the increase in technology adaptationand customer becoming more used to using e-commerce their demands increases.A website has to be interactively designed, making the experience enjoyable for the user.But how is the usability in the new e-grocery web sites in Sweden? Frame of reference: The theoretical framework in our thesis is build on the web usabilityand customer buying behavior by Bekker and Van der Merwe (2003), as well as web usabilitycriteria’s developed by a number of authors. For the persona development we used aframework from Robert Reinmann, Kim Goodwin and Lane Halley. Method: In this work we have used an inductive research approach using questionnaires,observation, interview and user study as our method for data collection. We analyzed thedata with support of the theoretical frameworks, on web usability evaluation in combinationwith the customer buying behavior process. We also developed personas from ourempirical data, which can be used in the redesign of the web sites. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the usability in e-grocery web sites is poor, both of thesites we evaluated in our user study had some major problems in either all or some of theusability criteria’s