Website Analysis

By Patarika Tipwong

5/6/2010

Site chosen: Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago – http://www.bgcc.org

1. What are the value proposition and business model for these sites?

According to Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago (BGCC), they do have a clear value position which is their mission. "To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens" (BGCC, 2005). BGCC is a club that provides activities and programs for children. It encourages parent to take the children to the club in order to involve in improving their personality. About the business model, BGCC uses business to consumer (B2C) strategy. On the BGCC web site, it allows people to interact with the activities and programs. People can also apply for a particular event. They can donate money through the web site as well. In general, they are the only one to control the overall transaction on the website.

2. Who are their competitions?

It is not only BGCC that is a club for children inn Chicago, but it is also spring board foundation, dime child foundation and many other foundations in the city.

3. How does the website integrate to other channels for this company?

BGCC integrates other channels as well. BGCC have24 based clubs in Illinois. It also uses brochures and leaflets to promote the club. Creating events and campaigns is another method that the club using.

4. Who are intended customers for the websites?

The intended customers of the website are parent and teachers who want their children to have a good potential.

5. How does these sites market and advertise themselves to attract consumer interest?

Since BGCC is a worldwide club in Chicago, it has many joint clubs around the city. Therefore, a lot of people get the information from events and programs that promoting on advertising such as newsletters, website, and emails through their members. Moreover, the website encourages people to involve in sale and promotion activity.

6. How does this site present its content/catalogue to attract different types of users/shoppers?

The website did the best job on its content. It has divided each section into category like activity, program, and company stories and features. People who visit the website are not only search for events and programs but they can also donate, volunteer, and sign up for each activity. If some people do not have children, they can also be part of the organization. This can be proved that the website is not attracting only parent but also people in general.

7. How does this site support different types of online purchasing behaviors? What tools for advice does this site use?

As mentioned above that the website is not attracting only parent but also people in general. The website therefore supports different types of online visitor. About tools use in the website, BGCC acquires registration method to get more people in the club since it encourages visitors to sign in to receive information. It is also using club search that provide the nearest place to get the children involve in any activity. Moreover, the club has search engine to gain intention for each activity. Lastly, it has customer reviews to guarantee the website.

8. How do these sites process order placement and payment?

The website has processed good order placement and payment. When people want to donate money, BGCC uses a specific type of donation such as donate by mail, online, or to a particular club. It also uses process funnel to trace along each step (see appendix 1). It tells donator a clear step. It is not only has updated and delete button, but also the go back button works very well. After the donators give some money, they will get the confirmation email as well.

9. How do these sites handle delivery, shipping and return??

After sign up or donate or volunteer to the website, it has an email to confirm the process. If some people apply for the activity or event, the invitation or programs will send to that person directly with the fastest delivery.

10. How responsive are their customer services?

Customer service of BGCC receives good feedback as more people participate in many activities or programs. This is because the website provide 24/7 access. It does have email auto reply which good to maintain customers' satisfaction.

11. How useful are each site's special interface feature and arrangement of content?

BGCC website is considered as a good website that provides best feature and arrangement of content. IT has well category and subcategory and the content is organized into specific topic.

12. Are these sites well organized, easy to navigate, visually appealing?

According to Nielson and Tahir, there were many methods to evaluate the website, which were heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, and scent analysis (Nielson and Tahir, 2002). However, on this report, it will focus on ten heuristic evaluations.

The first criterion for heuristic evaluation is visibility of system status. The website should tell the customers what processes they are doing and what is the next step to move on (Nielson and Tahir, 2002). BGCC provides progress icons at the top of every order page. This method can help visitors determine where they are. This can be proof that the website did a good job for visibility of the system.

The second heuristic evaluation is matching between system and real world. In fact, there are many different customers visit the website and most of them also have different backgrounds. Therefore, its website should provide many languages in order to serve the needs of each user (Nielson and Tahir, 2002). Since BGCC is based on United States, it uses standard language which is formal English.

Next, user control and freedom is the third criteria for heuristic evaluation. Customers should be controlled over the moving text or pictures, blinking, or even pages maybe paused or stopped. BGCC also has a short clip which includes a short preview that allows visitors to start and stop the playlist. This can be verified that the visitors have freedom to navigate for the products they want to search

The fourth heuristic evaluation is consistency and standard. The good website should provide consistency and standard such as link color and text format. According to Harris (2008), "the link color should be blue or (bluish)" and "the visited link color should be purple or (redish)" (Harris, 2008). In terms of text format, the suggestion for text format is black or dark color with light background and the font size should be big enough to read. BGCC uses these criteria to develop its website with a light color background and only dark blue, black and green color for letters.

Error prevention is the fifth of heuristic evaluation. Error messages should be pop up right after the users did something wrong. BGCC website has error message when people donate money, if there is something wrong like missing black for required fill, the message will show up.

Next, recognition rather than recall is the sixth criteria for heuristic evaluation. The visitors should be able to recognize the information where they come from. This can be done by providing the effective link and good labels. BGCC provides link to the other clubs and has back button to go back to the main page.

The seventh of heuristic evaluation is flexibility and efficiency of use. A flexibility and efficiency includes the speed of pages loaded and useful link (Nielson and Tahir, 2002). BGCC website loaded each page fast. It is also included useful link like comments from its volunteer, opportunity, sponsor program, innovation ways to give things for children.

Aesthetic and minimalist design is the eighth of heuristic evaluation. According to (Nielson and Tahir, 2002), "Dialogues should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed". For BGCC, most of the message that conveys information is useful.

The ninth of heuristic evaluation is to help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors. BGCC is concerned about this too. During the donation process, if the donator did something wrong or do not know what to go next, there is a help that tells where to start the process and fix the problems

Finally, help and documentation is the last thing for heuristic evaluation. BGCC also provides help tool which is great for users to find the solution when problem occurs.

13. What are some possible improvements or enhancements you would recommend for the site?

In my opinion, I think BGCC is already did the best job of developing this website. Since it includes category, subcategory, clear description and company overview, useful links to another website or organization, and lastly it has a good layout. One more thing that could benefits for the website is advertising. If the website has more information on each activity along with the pictures, I think more visitors will be interesting in joining the activities and programs

References