The Kamaʻāina Discounts: Usability Study on the Website Homepage

Abstract

Experiencing Hawaiʻi as a tourist is different from being a resident on a tropical island. A noticeable distinctness is the higher cost of living in accommodations, food, and merchandise. While Hawaiʻi is secluded from the continental U.S., daily life can become challenging without embracing the local culture. There is a wealth of online information for tourists visiting the islands, but only a minimal amount of materials scattered across multiple websites for new residents. The website, Mykamaaina.com, was created to help newcomers and people interested in moving to the island of Oʻahu with adjustment and cost-savings tips. The purpose of this usability project was to evaluate the navigation and content of the website homepage. Using the research model designed by Jakob’s Law of the Internet User Experience, users invest approximately 10 seconds looking over a new website and will click out and move onto the next if it is unusual or difficult. The homepage needs to communicate immediate value and enable the visitor to find good relevant material within seconds (Nielsen & Tahir, 2002). Built on a WordPress platform, the website contains Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, YouTube, and Pixabay elements. The data from the participants including their pre-and-post surveys were collected and analyzed. Revisions from the first two sets of usability studies were implemented. The overall results helped build a stronger homepage web presence to captivate first-time users to become repeat visitors for new content and information.