The Interactivity of the Website and Overall Design - Case Study Example

INSTITUTE WEBSITE DESIGN PROPOSAL ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Introduction In order for your web site to be productive, users must find useful information or accomplish tasks. In a goal-oriented design you must balance the needs of the users and the needs of your organizations (Krug 2005). This can be achieved by setting a full set of usage scenarios for each persona. One can the use the scenarios to test the site structure making sure it offers and experience that includes all the basic elements that are needed by the users to reach their goals. Personae to test the website features Jamila is a university graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She has a passion for technology. In addition to her degree, she has attended college and taken some professional courses in different fields such as website design, computer networks, software development and application use. She is a technical user and is always seeking to improve her knowledge and stay current in the market. She is employed by an IT company as a consultant. Jamila has a notebook personal computer, laptop, that she carries home and to her desk at work. She is able to access the internet using a her laptop computer from home and from the office. Miguel has been employed by the government printing press as clerk. He is between 30years and 40 years. He has worked in the different departments at the institution for 15 years and has a lot of business management knowledge. He has studied a secretarial course at college level and graduated with a distinction. To him, information technology is changing his career in a very drastic way. A while ago a computer was one of those tools that he did not need for job. In recent times, Miguel has found that he basically needs a computer for all his paperwork, typesetting and communication. Currently, his computer skills are very basic since he has not been exposed to computer use or taken any college certificate in computing. He can only access a computer at the local internet café or the office. He is working hard to catch up with the technology, so he has to study in his free time. (Fig1. Comparing Miguel’s and Jamila’s IT expertise) User persona Miguel Jamila Computer Training No computer training Graduate in computer studies Expert level Basic computer user Advanced Technical user Work Sector Government employed Private Sector Internet availability Office, Internet café Office, Internet café and home Criteria to judge websites Website critique, like website development, is not a defined science (Tamara & Pruitt, pp. 23). Powerful applications and new ideas arise constantly, paving way for old ideas and reshaping them. In simple language a website is much more than a sum of its constituent parts. One of the criteria to judge a website is the content. This evaluates the information provided in terms of usefulness, degree of information, interaction and presence of valuable graphics, audio or video (Johnson 2008). Structure and navigation of the website is also an important feature to look for. This refers to the framework of a website, prioritization of information, organization of the content and the method which you move through the website. Visual design with high quality appearance is also a feature to consider. The first impression a website gives is important and it often influences the visitor’s interest in the website. This is defined by the URL length, download time, plug-ins requirement, home screen view and depth of site (Beaird 2007). Functionality of the website is also a prominent criterion. It defines the use of technology on the site where good functionality means the site works well. The presence of live links, quick load time is a factor. Also a site that works cross-platform on different browsers is an important factor. A highly functional site will anticipate the diversity of the user requirements from file format, file size and download speed. Last but not least is the interactivity and overall experience. This is the way that a site allows you to achieve an intended goal. Allowing a user to give and receive and having the user participate is important. A user with a good overall experience comes back regularly, places a book mark, participates, stays for a while or signs up a newsletter etc. GBdirect Information Technology Training Institute website Available at: http://ebusiness.gbdirect.co.uk/ GBdirect Information Technology Training Institute website is hosted in the U.K. The Institute specializes in providing many courses in the field of information technology. Their website provides useful and well detailed information. For instance, course information such as the place of course , times and costs, which saves time for the user to get all what he wants without having to contact the Institute. The other thing I liked in the site is the structure and navigation of the website. It has a simple framework and straight forward content organization. The search engine is very accurate and saves a lot of time for the user to search for anything he wants in the site. The interactivity of the website and overall design is nicely done. It allows the user to do something, that is, give and receive information. The prioritization of information on the website gives it usability. It contains some live links, for example, on top10 popular courses offered by GBdirect. This website also provides other useful information such as a; jobs link, frequently asked questions, open standards etc. This aspect makes it cover the user needs in a wholesome fashion. The visual design of the website, however, is not appealing. It lacks useful graphics or video that gives a good first impression. This is a negative aspect where the home screen does not provide a hint about the depth of information or extent of the site. The top banner is ambiguous and confuses the audience. It does not contain a concept image or useful contact information and even worse the website name. This makes a visitor feel lost. The GBdirect website has very few graphics and this has served the user with a lot of prose. It makes the overall user experience boring and users are likely to spend very few seconds and exit. I would recommend an overhaul of this current design where useful visual aids, concept images, audio or video would be incorporated. Further, I would recommend use of technology to add functionality to the website by considering the user needs such as booking and inquiries. Information Technology Training Institute website Available at: http://www.itti.ac.nz The Information Technology Training Institute in New Zealand has a website that gives a good first impression. The high quality visual design has been supported by the harmony in colors and the appearance of the website. The home screen view alone gives the user the urge to browse more and in a way it depicts the depth of the website. In terms of content the website has provided useful information with valuable accompanying visual aids such as quality graphics. The use of technology is very evident. This has been shown by the presence of live links and browser independence. Technology use has improved the overall user experience by allowing an advanced level of interactivity with the website. The simple framework and content organization makes the website easy to navigate and gives it a unique and beautiful structure. The content has been complimented by the visual aids and is well prioritized. Displaying course details where you get more information about the course such as entry requirements, course time and location in an orderly manner and in simple language that is understandable is a good example. The website also contains attractors, this are extra services or information that keep the user glued to the website. For instance, it has a latest news section, finance and scholarships, enrolment links and a blog. It also contains a lot of external links useful to students. This feature makes it possible to get a lot of returning visitors to the website and visitors who spend time on the website. Largely the user satisfaction has been well addressed by the available design and functionality. However, the website lacks a visitor counter. This makes it hard to monitor the web site traffic and gauge the relevance of the provided information. The length of the home screen is also not appealing since the user has to scroll down to see the information on hidden from the screen. Additionally the website cannot be easily found using a search engine with keywords that could interest a student. In my opinion the web site has been professionally designed but needs a little adjustment to make it fully user friendly. Information Technology Institute website Available at: http://www.iti.gov.eg The Information Technology Institute in Egypt has a website with a good design, nice color selection giving it harmony and an appealing first impression. The site is easy to use with clear language and the users can easy navigate between pages. It also provides a lot of information about courses such as dates and locations. The useful content provided has been well prioritized and structured in a handy way for the users. The functionality available on the website shows a good use of technology. It has provided useful live links, social bookmarks, maps and location and an events calendar. This makes the interactivity with the website a good experience for the user. It allows the user to give and receive information through forms and text fields. Additionally the website provides several attractors, such as, related websites, staff links, news and events and a sitemap. The site is only in English and it would have been necessary to put Arabic and English to be the language of the site, because many Egyptians speak Arabic, The other thing that I did not see in website was is a search engine, it is one of the important things for any site. The Famous Grouse Available at: http://www.thefamousgrouse.com As the home screen page of the Famous Grouse website loaded on my screen, I noticed a very attractive home screen page. In addition, I liked the simple design where the webpage has very impressive visual aids and it is designed with consistent colors. There are images, static and dynamic. The dynamic images are of high quality and good visual design. The static images are incorporated as menu items and with a little wording and also large images with text surrounding. They compliment the text and reduce a lot of prose on the website. This website has several negative aspects to it. First the download time is long and it provides very little information on the home screen. It also requires an age specification which may turn off many interested users who are adults. The website is developed in flash macromedia and it requires plug-ins in most of the browsers. This makes it not suit to be cross platform and therefore not accessible by many users. The heavy graphics and very minimal content is not an intuitive design and many users may feel lost or unaware of the site and how it is helping them. I would recommend additional polishing of the site structure to reduce the graphic amount but keep the good visual design. Increase the wording and depth of the website, so as to give important information to the user. Institute Website Specific User Requirements This website intent and purpose will be to provide information to the users. It will be accessed by users like Miguel who want to learn and improve their basic skills and also Jamila who are advanced users. The first requirement is a visually attractive site that creates a good first impression. This will include a memorable URL, full view of the home screen, contacts and short download time. Additionally, this website should demonstrate use of technology by having advanced functionality that can allow user interaction and overall design experience. The navigation and structure of the website should be simple and straight forward with neat content organization. I recommend including attractors in the website, this will keep the user coming back to the website. The attractors are features like newsletters, career options, polls etc. A user, for instance, Jamila will be looking for current content and trends in information systems and technology. Prioritizing this information will help her in achieving the set goals. I further recommend a site that has knowledge of users. This feature makes the website adaptive and provides important statistics. Last but not least, including a website counter to monitor the traffic is important in making improvements to the website. References Beaird, J 2007, The Principles of beautiful web design, SitePoint,New York. Krug, S 2005,Don’t make me think: A Common sense approach to web usability, New Riders Press, California. Johnson, J 2010,Designing with the mind in mind: Simple guide to understanding user interface design rules, Morgan Kaufmann, Massachusetts. The Famous Grouse .2011. Alcohol and Beverage information source [online]. Scotland: The Famous Grouse. Available at: http://www.thefamousgrouse.com/contact-us [Accessed 24 October 2011]. GBdirect Ltd .2011. Training and technology information source [online].Cambridge: GBdirect Ltd. Available at: http://ebusiness.gbdirect.co.uk/contact.html [Accessed 24 October 2011]. Information Technology Institute (2010) Technology and communication sources [online].Cairo: Information Technology Institute. Available at: http://www.iti.gov.eg/newiti/contactus.asp [Accessed 22 October 2011]. Information Technology Training Institute (2008) Training Institute source [online].Auckland: IT Training Institute. Available at: http://www.itti.ac.nz/contact.htm [Accessed 23 October 2011]. Read More