Website Design Proposal - Assignment Example

WEBSITE DESIGN PROPOSAL ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Introduction A productive and usable website is the end product that is targeted by any developer. In the development process, the stakeholders set out to achieve and get an end product that maximises the visitor experience. The other important consideration for the stake holders is ensuring that the website gives back a return on investment. Focussing on the user rather than the product is a point of reference for the stakeholders. Many theories and readings have been developed based on basic HCI values – Human computer interaction values. For instance, user centered design, goal oriented design, process models, requirements analysis etc. All the aforementioned design related terminologies all aim at achieving a product that passes the heuristic evaluation. The most important aspect of design is achieving a product that gives the user a unique experience and attracts web traffic. My Experience Maharajas Restaurant http://www.maharajahs.co.uk/ The Maharajas website has been built to impress. The choice color is unique and it communicates the idea of dining and exquisite cuisine. As I browsed the Maharajas Restaurants website, I noticed a clear set of menu items that were well labeled. There was presence of site attractors scattered at the bottom with newsletter heads, social bookmarks etc. the clear logo accompanied by name on the header part of the website. In addition, I liked the simple design where the webpage has been centered and it is designed with consistent colors. These colors give harmony and the required contrast to the website, highlighting the important information should be made visible to the user first. The Maharajas website provides information using well available hyperlinks. The links are well structured and arranged and contain internal and external lines. http://www.maharajahs.co.uk/ Guru Balti restaurant Available at http://www.gurubaltirestaurant.co.uk/ The Guru Balti website has been designed following a simple principle of “don’t make me think”. It takes an approach to presentation of information by focusing on the important information on the Indian menus and recipes. I liked the additional features, for instance, room reservation and also client management. ASSAM’s http://www.assamscafe.co.uk/ I came across a few things that interested me in this website. To begin with, the level of usability of this website is high and at a glance it provides a lot of useful information to the browser. The information on the site is very valuable and serves the purpose of the user and all that is needed from Indian cuisines. A browser will find additional links and profiles of experts on nutrition and dieting. This gives the assurance to the user browsing the site that the cuisine provided here is quality. What attracts the viewer while surfing the sites home page are those characteristics of data and important information, for example, the browser can take a comprehensive overview of the Indian Spices. This site provides you with the function to make online purchases and reservations. Mission Statement Giving the user the ultimate information package by designing in such a way that they are able to achieve specific tasks and set goals. Creating a website that is aware of its users and keeps track of their activities. Overview of the Criteria to websites There are a number of evaluation techniques that can be applied to test site and functionality of the system. These techniques evaluate the design and implementation and the goal is to access the extent of the system functionality (Bevan 15). They also access the interface effect on the specific problem. For the mobile application prototype, I would use a heuristic evaluation. This technique, heuristic evaluation, is a method for structuring critique of a system using a set of relatively simple and general standards set by experts in user interface design. The first task in evaluating the system is to choose a group of users, in this case I will settle for six users. The users will be selected from different age groups and both sexes. The aim of this is to have a heterogeneous group to evaluate the prototype. The evaluation will focus on usability criteria points indentified by experts and the design will be examined to see violation of this cases. The aforementioned criteria will be, for example, automation of unwanted work, reduced uncertainty, use of meaningful aids, flexibility etc. The group of users will use the system and experience the functionality then give feedback. The goal of this exercise will be to find usability problems in the system easily and make corrections or improvements. This evaluation technique is best suited since it uses standards and benchmarks against an expert’s judgment. The usability goals of effective to use, easy to learn and utility will be best accessed using a heuristic evaluation since it will be comparing against a set of criteria set by experts. This is likely to give the best results for a general public since this design features that are examined will be conforming to widely accepted standards. For a successful outcome, the needs and wants of the user must be satisfied on the completion of the application development. The user needs should be elicited by techniques such as focus groups, group surveys, interviews etc (Beyer and Holtzblatt 79). The needs however should be reflected back to users by simulations to prototype the user requirements. This will of course change as the system develops and a real user evaluation is done. 1. Visual appeal 2. Usable content 3. Browser compatibility 4. Website Addons e.g. social bookmarks 5. User experience 6. Ease of use Website success measures These are referred to as web metrics and are measurable. The success factors can be quantified and as such measured in terms of improved website traffic. The criteria to quantify success varies among organizations. Website Traffic is a major success measure. The percentage of website visitors can significantly increase with a good design. Reduced bounce rate where website visitors do not leave as soon as they set in the site is a major concern. With Google analytics and other website traffic analyzers, one can estimate the specific rates. New and unique visits. Following an new upload, the visual design can improve unique site traffic visits. Bugs on the websites The Maharajas 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. All the examined sites lack 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. The Assam 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. Indian Website Specific User Requirements This website intent and purpose will be to provide information to the users. It will be accessed by users who want to learn and use restaurant facilities. 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. I recommend having the heading attribute for all headings with a h1 and h2 for sub headings. The body text will be font size 11 and Arial type for the font face. In addition, the links color will be set to purple, font-size 12, arial font face. In terms of the background color, I will settle for a light red color. This is intended to give the comfort ambience to the site visitors. Navigation Storyboard 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. Beyer, Hugh and Holtzblatt, Karen 1997, Contextual design: Defining Customer-centered Systems, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco. Bevan, Nigel 2001. “International standards for HCI and usability.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 15.1 (2001):14-16. Robertson, Suzanne and Robertson, James 1999, Mastering the Requirements Process, Addison-Wesley Professional,California. Read More