Design 1
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After finding yourturn.com while googling for toy recycling programs on Google, |
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Max is then taken to a page where he can list all of the toys he is interested in giving away. Now, because Naomi was a lot more interested in Japanese comics than Barbies, she had a lot more of them. Max, being a busy professional, didn't have the time to list out every single comic he had ever bought her. So he decides to simply submit an item with the title "Japanese Comics" and pictures of the comics laid out side by side. So that others can find the item listings he also adds a category of "Manga" and "Comics." He decides that manually typing in the details of each Barbie wasn't too much effort since Naomi had been particular when it came to holding on to the boxes they came in. After pressing submit, Max begins the waiting period. |
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Now Kyle having found yourturn.com presses the receive tab on the home page. He realizes that he can search for toys by type and types in his oldest kid's preference for toys: "Comics." He also decides to filter by distance under 5 miles away, as he can't afford the gas to go further for free toys. He manages to find some comics listed and luckily some of them happen to be the same comics that he had seen his kid reading before. He drags the free toys listed to his shopping cart slots and presses a claim button. |
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After Kyle claimed the toys, Max got a notification in his mailbox about someone claiming his toys. Excited, he finds the person that had made the request and open dialog made simple through an account page on yourturn.com. Kyle and Max make plans to meet up in the middle between both of them, to make it easier on both parties. Finally Max got rid of some toys, while Kyle made his oldest son's day. |
Analysis
Learnability
Pros
The simple nature of the home layout makes it clear quickly the intention of the service and how to begin. Moreover, the intuitive "plus" and "x" system for adding and deleting items in a list of toys to add to the site makes it quite natural for a novice user.
Cons
A aspect of the site that possibly harms the learnability of the site is the drag and drop mechanism for picking toys on the receiving end. This is different than the mechanism many current retail-like sites employ ( a standard add-to-cart button).
Efficiency
Pros
The power users have to limit the scope of their search is powerful in this design. Offering functionality to filter by multiple types of categories, distance, name, date, etc means the user who knows exactly what he is looking for can find relative content quickly.
Cons
Unfortunately, this powered searching mechanism for finding toys puts a strain on users registering toys as they have to list details of the toy (name,category, etc). This puts a bottleneck on how fast entries can be added to the toy listings.
Safety
Pros
The site is in general very safe. Navigating to a wrong page is easy to rectify. Entering bad information in the listings can be corrected by simply clicking on the entries. There is little "real" damage a user can do.
Cons
The one safety issue when it comes to removing added items on the listings tab. In the event that the user accidentally removes an item, he has to re-add it. This is likely not too much of an issue, however, because it is unlikely the user would delete multiple entries on the toy listings on accident. In the event that a single toy is removed, it is not difficult to add it back.