Summary of Results from our Findings

A Comparison to Heidi Adkisson's 2002 Results

  MAIN CATEGORY USABILTY FEATURES EXAMINED 2002 2006   2007 
         
GLOBAL NAVIGATION Frequency of Global Navigation      
  Percentage of sites with Global Navigation 97% 99% xx%
         
  Location of Global Navigation:      
  Top 89% 85% xx%
  Left 11% 13% xx%
  Main Content Area 0% 2% xx%
         
  Style for Global Navigation:      
  Navigation Bar 39% 38% xx%
  Navigation Tabs 43% 27% xx%
  Plain List 7% 25% xx%
  Pull Down Menu 5% 5% xx%
  Navigation Buttons 4% 5% xx%
         
  Link Style:      
  HTML text (not underlined) n/a 45% xx%
  Graphic text n/a 44% xx%
  HTML text (underlined) n/a 11% xx%
         
  Link Rollover Behavior:      
  None n/a 35% xx%
  Change text color n/a 24% xx%
  Change background color n/a 17% xx%
  Add underlining n/a 12% xx%
  Change graphic state n/a 12% xx%
         
         
GLOBAL “HOME” LINK Presentation of Home Link:      
  Logo linked to Home only 19% 46% xx%
  Logo linked to Home plus Home link at top of page 60% 39% xx%
  Logo linked to Home plus Home link in footer 13% 11% xx%
  Logo linked to first-level product category 8% 3% xx%
         
  Location of Global Home Link:      
  Top Left 100% 94% xx%
  Top Center 0% 3% xx%
  Top Right 0% 3% xx%
         
         
BREADCRUMB NAVIGATION   Is it Used?      
  Yes 45% 57% xx%
  No 55% 43% xx%
         
  Orientation:      
  Horizontal 95% 100% xx%
  Vertical 5% 0% xx%
         
  Separator Style:      
  Right Arrow 65% 80% xx%
  Colon 8% 7% xx%
  Slash 4% 5% xx%
  Pipe 9% 2% xx%
  Bullet 9% 2% xx%
  Left Arrow 9% 2% xx%
  Semi-colon 9% 2% xx%
         
         
FACETED CLASSIFICATION Is it Used?      
  Yes 69% 79% xx%
  No 31% 21% xx%
         
         
HTML LINK TREATMENT Primary HTML Link Color:      
  Blue 50% 34.70% xx%
  Grey 12% 24% xx%
  Black 12% 20% xx%
  Green 6% 9.30% xx%
  Red 13% 4% xx%
  White 0% 4% xx%
  Purple 2% 2.70% xx%
  Brown 5% 1.30% xx%
         
  Treatment of Text Links:      
  underlined 54% 55% xx%
  not-underlined 34% 44% xx%
  other 12% 1% xx%
         
  Rollover of Text Links:      
  Change color 15% 49% xx%
  None 68% 29% xx%
  Add underline 10% 21% xx%
  CBC 4% 1% xx%
         
         
PAGE WIDTH Page width of main content area:      
  701-750 27% 41% xx%
  751-800 47% 36% xx%
  100% stretched 0% 6.70% xx%
  1001+ 0% 6.70% xx%
  801-850 6% 2.70% xx%
  951-1000 0% 2.70% xx%
  601-650 13% 1.40% xx%
  651-700 7% 1.40% xx%
  851-900 0% 1.40% xx%
  901-950 0% 0% xx%
         
         
SITE LAYOUT Page Orientation:      
  Fixed Width Left Justified n/a 50% xx%
  Fixed width centered n/a 33% xx%
  Variable Width/100% Stretched n/a 17% xx%
         
         
SOURCE CODE Doctype:      
  None n/a 53.30% xx%
  HTML 4.0 Transitional n/a 33.40% xx%
  XHTML 1.0 Transitional n/a 9.40% xx%
  HTML 3.2 Final n/a 2.60% xx%
  XHTML 1.0 Strict n/a 1.30% xx%
         
  CSS or Tables for Layout?      
  Both Tables and CSS n/a 76% xx%
  CSS n/a 13.30% xx%
  Tables n/a 10.70% xx%