Heuristic Evaluation of the ARM Investment Center website
Goal
The goal was to critique the user interface and experience of any one of my previous works and provide recommendations where available. I opted for the ARM Investment Center website which was designed in H1 2019.
Methodology
For this evaluation, I’ll be applying the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design by The Nielsen Norman Group.
I decided to start on the homepage and then work my way through some key tasks on the website, while keeping a list of the heuristics handy.
As I discovered usability problems, I made sure to note them and take screenshots where necessary.
- Evaluator: Tobi Onaolapo
- Device / Browser / OS: Laptop / Windows 10 version 10.0 / Chrome version 92.0.4515.131
- Website URL: www.arminvestmentcenter.com
- Date of evaluation: 6th August 2021
Once I finalised the list of violations, I gave a severity rating to each of them using the severity rating scale below:
- No violations found
- Cosmetic problem (fix issues if time is available)
- Minor usability problem (fixing issue is moderate priority)
- Major usability problem (fixing issue is high priority)
- Usability catastrophe (imperative to fix immediately)
Heuristic 1: Visibility of system status
Inquiry
Are we clearly communicating the state the User is in throughout the journey? Are we presenting feedback to the user as quickly as possible?
Violation
Most of the pages are adequately labelled with titles and visual markers for categories and products. Breadcrumb trails exist on various product pages to keep the user aware of where they are at certain points in the user journey.
Recommendation
1. Rename the progress tracker labels during the registration – checkout process to correctly reflect the stages the user has to go through during the onboarding process
2. Add informational prompts or notifications at the start and conclusion of the onboarding process






Heuristic 2: Match between system and the real world
Inquiry
Do the Users understand the words and terminologies used and are the words used in the right context?
Violation
Recommendation
1. Rename the labels during the registration – checkout process to correctly reflect the stages the user has to go through during the onboarding process
2. All in all, the digital experience does not replicate real-life investment actions and behaviours and the payment process is too similar to that of an e-commerce website.




Heuristic 3: User control and freedom
Inquiry
Is it easy for the User to back out of a process or undo an action?
Violation
Recommendation
1. The navigation can be greatly improved by the addition of a sitemap, back buttons at various locations and making the breadcrumbs clickable
2. There should be sufficient pop-ups and dialog boxes to confirm actions and help users back out of processes




Heuristic 4: Consistency and standards
Inquiry
Is there a consistent design standard used for all the design elements including the buttons, fonts, form fields and Call to Actions?
Violation
Recommendation
1. Create a design system and abide by the standards and boundaries of the system.






Heuristic 5: Error prevention
Inquiry
Are there measures in place to prevent errors and slip-ups by providing helpful constraints?
Violation
Recommendation
1. Include clear guidelines to guide the user in what type of information is needed for each specific action during the purchase of investment products.
2. Add contextual field validation to check the information filled in instantly, and not after the user has submitted the form. Any input rules should be highlighted, especially when they are not fulfilled.
Heuristic 6: Recognition rather than recall
Inquiry
Is the information required to use the website regularly visible to the User or is it easily retrievable when needed?
Violation
Recommendation
1. Icons should be used alongside button labels to further aid recall




Heuristic 7: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Inquiry
Is the user presented with shortcuts to help them achieve their basic and frequent goals quickly?
Violation
Recommendation
1. Some levels of personalisation, such as a ‘recently viewed’ section, need to be added to the website to enable recall and make information more accessible
Heuristic 8: Aesthetic and minimalist design
Inquiry
Is the interface clean, uncluttered and easy to understand?
Violation
Recommendation
1. There’s no mechanism in place to detect and help users recover from errors encountered.
2. The error messages are not very helpful and there is a lot of technical language used.




Heuristic 9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Inquiry
Are error messages expressed concisely and in human language to precisely indicate a problem, and are they helpful in solving problems?
Violation
Recommendation
1. There should be hints provided everywhere and the error messages should be in more informative human language.
2. There should also be an error message library with error codes and their meanings to enable users to understand the causes of their errors, and first-level actions they can take towards solving them.
3. The form fields should have live validation and necessary guidelines where necessary.


Heuristic 10: Help and documentation
Inquiry
Are there any necessary guidelines on how to use the product? or any form of documentation to help them achieve their goals?
Violation
Recommendation
1. There should be walkthroughs, pop-ups, and tooltips at the relevant locations to guide the user through the usage of the product.
2. The FAQ page can be more organised and filtered based on the categories and frequency asked.





