Candidates Usability Award 2010

The candidates for the usability awards 2010 are:

1. www.bol.com
2. www.ditzo.nl
3. www.eduhub.nl
4. www.hotels.nl
5. www.nos.nl

The scores for the webguidelines are:

1. www.bol.com 36 points;
2. www.ditzo.nl 28 points;
3. www.eduhub.nl 40 points;
4. www.hotels.nl 40 points;
5. www.nos.nl 42 points.

The validation results of these sites are:

1. www.bol.com Not valid, 111 errors;
2. www.ditzo.nl Not valid, 390 errors;
3. www.eduhub.nl Not valid, 16 errors;
4. www.hotels.nl Valid XHTML Strict;
5. www.nos.nl Valid XHTML Transitional.

Quality is not the same thing as usability.

The loadtime of these sites are:

1. www.bol.com 4.9 seconds;
2. www.ditzo.nl 25.7 seconds;
3. www.eduhub.nl 1 second;
4. www.hotels.nl 1.7 seconds;
5. www.nos.nl 1.4 seconds.

So Ditzo is far to slow.

Lipperhey scores:

1. www.bol.com technical 7.3, seo score 76%, popularity 10, overall score 8.3;
2. www.ditzo.nl technical 6.7, seo score 74%, popularity 8, overall score 7.4;
3. www.eduhub.nl technical 7.3, seo score 83%, popularity 8, overall score 7.9;
4. www.hotels.nl technical 7.8, seo score 84%, popularity 9, overall score 8.4;
5. www.nos.nl technical 6.6, seo score 71%, popularity 10, overall score 7.9;

How liguid are the designs (when does the horizontal scrollbar appear):

1. www.bol.com 1 x "CTRL +";
2. www.ditzo.nl 1 x "CTRL +";
3. www.eduhub.nl 1 x "CTRL +";
4. www.hotels.nl 1 x "CTRL +";
5. www.nos.nl 1 x "CTRL +";

Is it easy to contact the organisation. Is there a real e-mail address or a contact form.

1. www.bol.com e-mail address plus contact form;
2. www.ditzo.nl no e-mail address, you have to make a phonecall;
3. www.eduhub.nl e-mail address plus contact form;
4. www.hotels.nl e-mail address, no contact form;
5. www.nos.nl e-mail address, no contact form;

Overall I think that based on these tests www.hotels.nl should be the winnar. However you should score these websites on the following aspects:

1. Navigation;
2. Content;
3. Design;
4. Usability (Is the site easy to use).

In a next blog I will answer these questions.