A Comparison between Dealnews Website and Dealmoon Website based on information foraging theory

With Black Friday just around the corner, I am looking for convenient ways to get great deals. Prior to heading to the mall, it is better to search for these advertisements first online and do some homework. I found that both Dealnews and Dealmoon have a separate feature section for Black Friday Deal Ads. But they use different ways to present the same topic. I prefer Dealnews to Dealmoon for the following reasons based on information foraging theory.

Make it easy for user to find what they need

Dealmoon only uses vertically arranged layout and users need to scroll to get from one item to the next. The website displays some specific information about the ads such as downloading flyer, searching deals and store locations.

Dealnews arranges brand logos three in a row and each thumbnail contains a button which allows users to browse specific ads.

According to information snacking theorem, users always go online briefly and look for quick answers. When it is hard to find useful information, users will leave your website quickly. In a sea of information about deals and coupons, I think it is easier to scan through brand logos and find what I need. There is an issue of excise. For Dealmoon, vertical-arranged ads mean more mouse movement and more navigation from one item to another. However, with brand logos presented both vertically and horizontally, we can move our mouse at a higher speed towards the items and get more information at limited space and time.

Exhibit cues directly related to the desired outcome

Users are lazy and goal-driven. When seeking information they always do cost-cost-benefit assessment. I want to get specific information of deals and Dealmoon just gives me some pictures of the flyer and a vertical display of texts. Please see the following figures.

When I click the button of browsing ads on Dealnews,the website offers me a list of screenshots of products and their detail information. Even I can get an alert of the product.

A good design interface is that it can provide clear navigation cues, effective content grouping and rich data sources for users. The designer should give cues directly related to users’ desired outcome. Dealnews offers clear path and helps users to find what they really need, while the designers of  Dealmoon are lazy and allow users to spend a lot of time in information foraging.  The key of cost and benefit model is to get more results in less time. The website need to present massive amounts of data in an effective and efficient ways so that users perform the embedded task easily and happily.

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