The document summarizes a usability study conducted on the Sulekha.com website. It collected data from 3 users with different levels of online experience. The study found several usability issues including inconsistent navigation, overloaded pages, and poor positioning of important elements. Recommendations included redesigning pages for better color scheme, appearance consistency, and usability. Suggestions also involved improving readability of highlights and repositioning important links more prominently.

1. www.peppersquare.com
Usability Study
Sulekha.com
By
pepper square
© 2002-2009 pepper square. All rights reserved.
Information in this document is confidential and proprietary to pepper square

2. www.peppersquare.com
Understanding Sulekha
Online media for news and social networking through blogs, images etc.
•
Online and mobile portal for local commerce - integrating yellow pages and classifieds
•
Objective
Aiming to provide an insight on how sulekha.com website can improve its performance in terms
of users experience, functionality, etc. pepper square brought out a list of issues where
sulekha.com requires revamp.
In order to enhance users experience, and website credibility and usability the site needs to be
restructured completely. The site provides adequate information but the arrangement of the
information on the site creates clutter and the information needs to be reorganized and
positioned well.
Users Profile
Data are collected from 3 different users, working in different departments of pepper square,
1. Age 32 with over 15 years of experience with various online mediums
2. Age 30 with over 6 years of experience in search engine optimization
3. Age 25 with over 3 years of experience in content writing and information architecture for
websites
Findings
Though approximately 4,000,000 users visit www.sulekha.com per month, the organization needs to
enhance users experience. We have brought out the issues where sulekha.com needs improvement.
1. Users find it difficult to navigate through the site as different navigation tabs and links are
provided for same page, which creates confusion
2. Home page and inner pages are overloaded by navigational elements
3. Important links (Advertise with us, Press, Media, SulekhaB2B) appear at the bottom of the
page. They remain unnoticed.
4. Lack of consistency: Each page appears differently; colours, features, navigations and
elements on the pages are different from each other.
Overview pages of Real Estate, Buy and sell, Cars and Bikes contain a heading
o
“Let Sulekha get it for you!”, where as Home Services page
(http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/bangalore/home-services/532.htm) contains
two different headings “Looking for Home Services?” and “ Don't search. Let
Sulekha get the right Home Services to call you”.
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 1 of 10

3. www.peppersquare.com
Buy and sell page contains a “Most Popular Items” table, where as Real Estate,
o
Cars and Bikes pages don’t showcase that.
Design of the Search bar: On some pages Google Serach is featured, on other
o
pages Sulekha search is featured. Different colours and designs are used for
Search bar on different pages
Lack of consistency in naming conventions. E.g. Cars and Bikes , Buy & Sell ,
o
Computers & Mobiles
Appearance and treatment
•
Navigations for classifieds and yellow pages, and news, blogs, photos etc. appear similar.
News and blogs are treated as classified by the users.
E.g. Treatment of Expression tab (links to the Featured Blog page) is similar to Travel, Food
and Mobile (link to respective local business providers’ pages) at the bottom of the page.
Positioning of the highlights
•
Highlights lost their appeal as they are placed in the middle of the body with other
navigations. Users do not always notice them.
Customer care response
Customer care team responses immediately, but representatives are not well trained. In response to
the query for buying an apartment, one of the representatives asks irrelevant questions; some of
them are listed below:
Sulekha representative: What is your budget to buy a home?
User: 10
Sulekha representative: 10 thousand?
Sulekha representative: Are you also interested in buying a bike or a car?
User: No, not now
Sulekha representative: You can advertise with Sulekha by posting your ads!
User: I don’t want to sell but buy
Sulekha representative talking…(Going off from the subject)
User (Hangs up…)
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 2 of 10

4. www.peppersquare.com
Visual View
1. http://www.sulekha.com/
Tag line has lost
The two navigations Instant responses, Get it button and
its appeal, looks
Post a Free Ad button link to same page i.e.
like an
http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/find-it-on-
advertisement
sulekha.htm?source=sulhome
Post a Free Ad button appears at the bottom of the page
as well.
This part of the page is Treatment of Blog tab is similar to
overloaded by navigations, Food, Movies, Travel etc.
creating clutter.
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 3 of 10

5. These highlights have lost
their appeal as they are
positioned at the middle of www.peppersquare.com
the page
The Viral has lost its appeal as it is
positioned in the middle of the page
These highlights have lost
Important navigation their appeal as they are
“Advertise with us”, positioned at the bottom of
appearing at the bottom of the page
the page, is not readable
Recommendation:
Tagline needs to be placed more prominently. It carries the brand image of Sulekha.
•
Sulekha viral “1000 year old lost art of…” Sulekha viral “1000 year old Lost Art…”is one of the
•
most important marketing tools for Sulekha and can be used more efficiently on the page.
Navigations and highlights need to be rearranged and redesigned. Selected tab can have a
•
different colour from the tabs not selected by the users. Highlights look like navigation tabs,
need to be redesigned and can be placed more prominently.
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 4 of 10

6. www.peppersquare.com
Google Search has lost
its appeal. Moreover
2. http://blogs.sulekha.com/
Google Search is
appearing only for Blogs
page, lacking
consistency.
On clicking “Start Blogging”
button and “My Blog”
navigation tab, same page
appears.
“Featured posts” and “Recent
posts” are automatically extracted
In this section Associates’ logo
here, though Recent Posts and
appears as links, on clicking Blog Print
Featured navigation tabs are
“contest guidelines” appear.
present.
Recommendation:
Instead of partner’s logo contest name would convey the proper message. Logos can be
•
placed in a different manner.
Search option is not consistent throughout the site. There should be a prominent Search bar
•
placed properly (preferably Right-Top of all the pages).
Featured posts and Recent posts are automatically extracted on the page, therefore no need
•
of navigation tabs for these two section
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 5 of 10

7. www.peppersquare.com
3. http://blogs.sulekha.com/tags/tag.aspx?tag=blogbuzz
• The logo is not readable.
• Purpose of placing Team Sulekha
and the logo is not understood
Recommendation:
Logo should be positioned more prominently
•
Blog buzz (Team Sulekha and the logo) should be featured on the particular Blog page. On
•
this page only blog headlines and brief can be featured.
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 6 of 10

8. www.peppersquare.com
4. http://www.sulekha.com/network/register.aspx
“Select your city” doesn’t
appear unless you provide
the postal code.
Recommendation:
Select Your City option can be placed just above the Postal Code with a drop-down menu.
•
User will be able to understand better what he/she needs to provide.
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 7 of 10

9. www.peppersquare.com
5. http://sutapapsq.sulekha.com/dashboard.htm
The colour scheme of the page
is a combination of Yellow and
Brown, though the tab shows
only Brown colour.
Many different elements appear in this
This highlight doesn’t serve the purpose
section.
as it has lost readability.
• Jayaram47 asks
• Ebony for eclectic Indian cuisine
• To get daily astro update your DOB
“Update your DOB” highlight has lost
“Update your DOB” highlight has lost
appeal
appeal
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 8 of 10

10. www.peppersquare.com
So much of space is left unused while
important highlight “Also on Sulekha” is
placed at the bottom of the page.
Recommendation:
Page needs to be redesigned in terms of
•
o Colour
Appearance
o
Uniformity
o
Usability
o
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 9 of 10

11. www.peppersquare.com
6. http://yellowpages.sulekha.com/find-it-on-sulekha.htm?source=sulhome
Entering food as a keyword
displays various other
suggestions like Used home
electronic appliances and
Home appliances services
Recommendation
Keyword suggestion should be related to the keywords provided by the user.
•
This page looks like a different site, needs to be redesigned in terms of
•
o Colour
Appearance
o
Uniformity
o
Usability
o
Sulekha.com Usability study Page 10 of 10