Abstract

E-commerce, known as electronic commerce, is the activity of purchasing, exchanging or selling goods or services over the internet. However, the activity of exchanging is very rare in e-commerce fields especially in consumer-to-consumer (C2C) type of e-commerce. Therefore, this study aims to design a C2C e-commerce web application prototype, specifically for gaming products, with an “exchange” feature which allows users to exchange their gaming items. Additionally, this research aims to critically evaluate the usability and user experience of the prototype. As literature is reviewed, It can be found that there is a lack of studies in terms the usability and user experience evaluations of C2C platforms.

This study also explores user experience principles, laws, psychological and ethnographical factors in HCI, as well as government regulations and professional standards in design, data protection, and accessibility guidelines and implements these factors in the design process.

This thesis adopts a case study approach and 5-step (emphasise, define, ideate, prototype, and test) design thinking methodology which includes human-centred design processes. After conducting a survey with 20 respondents for user research, users’ demographics, e-commerce habits, interface experiences, and mental models were identified, and user personas were created. By analysing qualitative data using qualitative coding method and affinity diagramming, key themes and pain points were identified before the design process. After creating sketches as an ideation method for the web application, mid-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes were designed using atomic design methodology and implementing the design principles. Moderated usability testing, Single Ease Question (SEQ), pre-test interview, post-test survey, and System Usability Scale (SUS) methods were used for the user experience and usability evaluation of the prototype. The evaluation process was iterative and consisted of 2 usability sessions with 5 participants for each session.

According to the data analysis, the prototype had an 84.25 SUS score for perceived usability and user experience. In addition, post-test questionnaires on usability showed that metrics and usability components (such as learnability, effectiveness, efficiency, memorability, error tolerance, satisfaction, accessibility, and task success, etc.) scored higher than 4 on a 5-point Likert scale. However, the results of the usability tests also show that the features of the web application need to be improved for better usability and user experience.

Designing and evaluating a C2C gaming e-commerce website in terms of Usability and User Experience