User Centred Design for Web - Coursework Example

?Prototypes Home 2. About Us 3. Contact Us 4. Gallery 5. Volunteers Evaluation Technique Heuristic Evaluation Technique This method was chosen because of its ability to test the user ease of leaning, ease of use and efficiency they carried their activities. One of the youth members of the local football club was called upon to carry an activity of sending an email to the site administrator. The youth member was chosen because it had been seen the biggest number of site users would be youths. The test was carried out by having the site on a computer and then supplying the youth with the scenario. The youth was told why he was supposed to carry out the activity. The developers had to stay aside and watch how the youth carried out the activity. The time that was taken by the youth to complete the activity had to be recorded. The more time the youth took to carry out an activity meant how hard navigation on the page was. Think aloud Technique This technique was to involve the chairman of the management committee. The method was chosen because it allowed the chairman to talk aloud of what he was doing in the website. The chairman was chosen because he was seen to be the person who would be more representative of the elderly Sudanese member visiting the site. The evaluation was carried out by having the paper prototype prepared and given to the chairman. The task of finding and uploading pictures within the gallery was to be carried out using the prototype. The developers had to record the thoughts of the chairman as he carried out the activity. The record would convey how the chairman intended to carry out the activity and the way he carried them using the site. The efficiency of the recording had to be ensured by having an audio recorder and also one of the developers writing down the important points. These will be evaluated later after the test. Lessons Learned The evaluation technique was a success because it identified main areas of weakness of our site. The evaluation technique arrived at changes to be carried on the site. One of the changes was on the gallery page. People suggested that a transformation tool needed to be included in the gallery. This tool would enable them make any changes to their pictures after uploading them on the site. The gallery also needed an additional feature to enable visitors label their pictures once they were online. Change on the menu was also identified. People suggested that they required the horizontal menu added at the top of the page. They claimed the horizontal menu is universal and that is the first menu they look for in a site. The evaluation was an eye opener how developers make software having themselves as the users in the mind. This thought makes them make complex software that can only be used by experts in the field. One of the place is the gallery where the group though that any user would have edited their picture before uploading it on the site which was wrong. It also brought to my attention how different users have different needs when using the same software. This was seen by seeing those activities being carried by the youths were different from those the elderly group required. Knowledge gained from the evaluation would be used in future in determining selection criteria of evaluators of software. The criteria will always take into consideration the age as a factor. This is because different people in different age groups like to carry out activities in different modes. In future the evaluation technique would be carried out using multiple evaluation techniques. This is because each evaluation technique identified new errors in the system that meaning the more the evaluation technique the more the improvement would be carried out on the system. This ensures maximum satisfaction of the clients with the system. Reflections on the design process The design process played a major part in testing my leadership skills. This was done because the whole development process involved interacting with different people who acted different. I had to take the leadership role and ensure all this groups worked coherently without any misunderstanding. The design process also brought to my attention the need to write down everything that happens during the development process no matter how minor it was. These minor ideas came to play a major role in the future. The main problem experienced during the activity was uncooperative people. The interview stage mainly, where people refused to give their ideas claiming the information was for sale. This people wanted to be paid which would be costly on developing the website. Others feared information that they gave would be used in future against them. Communication barrier was another problem in collecting requirements, testing and evaluation process. This is where some people could not understand instructions written for them. This made the different developers had to read the instructions to them. Communication problem was also experienced where during the interview people would not understand each other due to pronunciation problem. People pronounced names in different mode leading to need to keep asking the same question a couple of times. This led to time wastage on the interviewee and the interviewer. These experiences led to making a decision of having any instruction to people are both in verbal messages and written form. This would ensure users would have an option of listening or reading. The boring part was where users gave conflicting ideas and each user wanted their characteristics included in the system. These users kept on asking why I did not include their suggestions in the final system. They had to be educated not all suggestions would be reflected in the system. The effectiveness of the whole process was good. This was justified by having an acceptable end product delivered to the client. This site would be accepted by users with few training need because of their involvement in the whole process. Reference Jakob, N., 1994. Usability Inspection Methods. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More