Findings Summary
Majority of the issues were discovered in the account creation page of the Flickr website. Although Flickr was acquired by Yahoo! It makes it a bit tedious for a user to create a Yahoo! account for just that purpose. A user may not want to create a Yahoo! account and would rather have a separate Flickr account. Also, there is no reference to Flickr anywhere when registering. This causes confusion in new visitors to the website.
Navigation between photos was a tedious where the user could open up an image in full view, but there was no way to go back to the previous page. A user would have to navigate again through the menus and links to reach a particular image that he/she was looking for.
Being a media website, Flickr must provide the user with a complete and rich experience. If some changes are made to the website keeping in mind this evaluation report, Flickr can achieve better user experience.
1. Account Creation & Account Sign In
Comments
[1.5] There are no explicit instructions provided for account creation. The account creation page does provide hints to complete fields in the registration form but there is no set of instructions provided that direct a person to fill out the form. It is assumed that the user is well versed with the registration process and different elements of the form.
[1.6] No email is sent to verify account creation. Majority of the websites send an email to the new user that requires the user to click on a link to verify the email ID. However, once the new Yahoo Account is created, no such email is sent to the Yahoo account. Only a welcome email is present. No email is sent to the user when they login using their other email ID or using Facebook.
[1.8a] Account creation page is for a Yahoo! Account. The Flickr account sign up button leads to a Yahoo! Account creation page and not a separate Flickr account creation page. A user may not want to create a Yahoo! Account.
[1.10] A user has to navigate to a separate page to choose what he has forgotten. A user has to navigate away from the login page to a separate page to choose what he has forgotten instead of giving a direct link to reset password or username or incase his/her account is compromised.
2. Situational Awareness
Comments
[2.1a] Sign up button takes user to create a Yahoo! Account instead of Flickr account. A user would expect to have a Flickr account created through the sign up button, but the user is instead taken to create a Yahoo! Account.
[2.1b] There is a distracting Yahoo navigation tool bar on top. The Yahoo toolbar on top has links to different pages on Yahoo which a user might not be very interested in and poses as a distracting factor.
[2.1c] No way to navigate to previous page when an image is opened. When we open an image on Flickr, it provides arrows to navigate between images, but no way to go back to the page where the images was clicked on, except the back button on the browser.
[2.2a] & [2.3a] Sign up page has absolutely no reference of Flickr. The signup page shows only details of creating a Yahoo! Account and there is no reference of Flickr anywhere.
[2.2b] Wrong message for a user in the section, You > Creations section when no photos are uploaded. If a user has not uploaded any photos to Flickr and he/she goes to the You > Creations section it displays a message stating that the user does not have any Photo books, select from the below sets to create one. There is nothing present under the message, giving the website an incomplete feel.
[2.4] Very little information is given about what different pages are about. For example, when a new user clicks on the Groups link, it only shows that you are not a part of any group and gives a button to create one without a description of how groups work. An experienced user may be able to understand its context, but a novice new user would be confused what the purpose of a group is.
3. Support User Goals
Comments
[3.1] User cannot navigate back to the previous page when viewing an image. When an image is clicked on, it opens in a full screen view where a user can only navigate between images or on other pages. The user cannot navigate back to the previous page without having to press the back key on the browser. (Appears to be corrected in photo experience beta version by providing a button to close the image but needs to be implemented as it is a basic function)
[3.2a] There is no direct link to reset password or retrieve username. The user has to go to an unnecessary separate page where he selects which login element he has forgotten instead of having it present directly on the login page.
[3.2b] If a user has not uploaded photos, the Creation page wrongly asks the user to select a set of photos. The Creation page in the You > Creation menu asks the user to select a set of photos. If the user does not have any photos uploaded, the page still asks the same and has a blank area below the message.
[3.4] Information Is provided to the user about the current page, however, font sizes are relatively too small to read. For example, when a user is trying to edit photos, the font size of Delete, Edit and Add a comment links are too small to be comfortable for the user to read.
