Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usability, "Can I use it?" the sub-category of Consistency often does not get the attention it deserves, in turn leading to more confusing, more frustrating, less Usable products.

Evaluation of Consistency covers the assessment of recurrent expectations as they are impacted and shaped by the product’s content (or wording), interfaces, and layout. Expectations that result from the type of web product and its market (inter-product, rather than intra-product) have greater impact on the Recognition variable.

Today, we will look at an example of an Internet product with No Apparent Inconsistencies, representing a Consistency value of 1.

Example: No Apparent Inconsistencies (value = 1)

Gateway provides a cohesive computer shopping / browsing web experience, with No Apparent Inconsistencies. When navigating from page to page, perhaps the most notably consistent feature is the header and header behavior. This element is present no matter where the user navigates to at Gateway.com. Furthermore, the header provides a consistent interaction experience and uniform rules for expanding and growing as the user goes from section to section, or digs down for more details.

There are also No Apparent Inconsistencies with the language usage or capitalization. The page elements remain in-place, aligned, and consistent from page to page.

Gateway‘s presentation of consistent interface, navigation, and language, with consistent responses to user actions throughout the entire site do not stop at the Support page – a page often found to have a greater occurrence of variance and inconsistency on other websites, at large.

Over the next several weeks I will be providing real-world examples of Consistency values…

No Apparent Inconsistencies (value 1)

Minor Inconsistencies (value 0.5)

Significant Inconsistencies (value 0)

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usability and Consistency of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy