USABILITY EVALUATION FRAMEWORK FOR E-COMMERCE WEBSITES

The importance of evaluating the usability of e-commerce websites is well recognised and several studies have evaluated the usability of e-commerce websites using either user- or evaluator-based usability evaluation methods. No research, however, has employed a software-based method in the evaluation of such sites. Furthermore, the studies which employed user testing and/or heuristic evaluation methods in the evaluation of the usability of e-commerce websites did not offer detail about the benefits and drawbacks of these methods with respect to the identification of specific types of usability problem. This research has developed a methodological framework for the usability evaluation of e-commerce websites which involves employing user testing and heuristic evaluation methods together with Google Analytics software.