Improving the Efficiency of a Website - Term Paper Example

Abstract http://www.uq.edu.au is a website designed for the well known university in Queensland Australia. This website is designed for the purpose of integrating the university to the students as well as the other interested users. In addition, the website was designed to advertise its courses and to communicate easily to its interested personalities. Moreover, the website is also considered as information about Queensland University. The academic theme of the website is heavily on the corporate colors of the organization, which creates a feeling of the university even in the online arena. Any reader that has an intention of visiting this site will have a feeling as if he has an immediate and physical contact with the University. The website has many graphics, links, and a color as well as fonts that vary throughout the website-it is defined as a connection of pages on the World Wide Web considered a single entity maintained by an organization or a person. The website is divided into several pages that are interrelated or connected to each other by use of links. The website top is the Universities Logo and website name (the university name). Below the Universities logo and name is a link to various WebPages contained within the main website. The website is organized in a manner that is of great appeal to the users. It is divided into four rows and five columns. Introduction As a result of internet development and growth, the size and capacity of information that academicians can now have access in an amazing manner or state. Due to this information Queensland’s University website has been integrated in the internet for guiding practices for educational purposes. The website has recorded more than four million users over the last three years. The task of determining the appropriateness and usefulness of a website is an intimidating affair. Websites are now becoming a stage in which students can be able to their share their skills and knowledge of the academic potentials. The website is important since it is able to offer students with feedback that will reflect on the content and design of the university’s academic calendar. The examination of the software as well as the website evaluation can be a useful tool in adding the importance of the website. There are many concerns that are brought about from the website that calls for improvement so as to meet the needs and concerns of users who always visit the site for academic assistance (Berda, 2011). Efficient evaluation process and practices will ensure that the students and other website users to build positive learning experiences in the World Wide Web. The website is evaluated to make it effective for both the University and users to attain the goals for the website. The users must be able to know about the site, find the site on the World Wide Web, find the page they need from the website as well as the information they want. The website effectiveness will be determined by the criteria that includes the navigation, first impression and content, and user satisfaction. Aim of conducting the Evaluation The ability and knowledge of improving the efficiency of a website are one of the most vital things to do on the internet. Improving the efficiency of a website is a crucial process that can be used to increase the usability of end users such as students and other users with the University as well as those outside the campus. This evaluation paper has several aims ranging from primary aims and secondary aims: the primary aims of the study are: i. To conduct an evaluation on the website to determine its accessibility to the students as well as other visitors of the site. ii. To determine the most effective ways of improving the useability of the website among for both the students and other end users The secondary aims of the study were to: i. Evaluate the credibility of the website to its users and how this credibility can be increased. ii. To measure the effectiveness of the website and to increase the visibility of the website. Investigation Methods General assessment of a Website This method will be important in the evaluation of the website since it is able to provide the user with the clarity of information that will guide him through his search of information and data in the website (Annan, 2012). General assessment also helps the website owners to determine the essential links that can be useful for the users. The website is considered as a site that produces excellent visual presentation and impression. The site navigation is clear for all the pages hence light has the ability of loading easy. Though the website is easy to load it has several broken links that have to be repaired (Berda, 2011). The problem of the broken links is due to constant alteration of codes by the web developers as well as the constant hackers that try to intervene the administrators work efficiencies. Despite the fact that the navigation is clear to the user, some of the windows can be able to open in new windows- this is not a good practice. With reference to the search optimization, the site has a home page that contains high Google PageRank 8. Due to this the website takes an excellent in all the popular search engines. Though, deeper held pages are not optimized in the search as some of them share the same titles, miss important descriptions while others lack the main header tags ( ,) (Annan, 2012). Accessibility The University website uses the accessibility rule that is marked in international standards. The following are: [508 (0)]- this is known as provision “O” found in the United section 508. The other standard requirement is [W3C 13.6 (3)] known as WWW consortium accessibility standards. After a long process of determining the accessibility of the site under 508 compliance the following was obtained (Berda, 2011). A text equivalent that was compared to non text equivalence was not provided for example it lacked “longdesc” as well as “alt” (Annan, 2012). All the equivalence alternatives that were compared to multimedia presentation were synchronized with the website presentation. The WebPages were designed in such as way that all the components that could be seen in color could also be seen without color. Documents found within the website were organized such that they were readable and did not require any linked sheet. After conducting the accessibility test it was also noted that all the redundant links could be able to active regions of the severs active side image; the rows and columns did not identify the data tables thus the mark-ups were not able to be associated with the header cells as well as the data cells; the frame title with text facilitation was able to a proper frame navigation and identification; the pages were able to flicker with frequency more than 2 Hz and that lower than 55 Hz; the information script did not identify the functional text that could be read by any assistive technology hence failed the test; the site was able to offer a link that allowed more plug-ins and applet to be added to the site by administrators and the users; the introduction of electronic forms in the system did not allow other users apart from the admin to use any relevant assistive technology to access information, and the system allowed users to have a specific time response that allowed the users to have more time. Compliance of Privacy Tracking of visitors After careful privacy evaluation using double click metrics solutions to determine the visitor’s tracks, it was discovered that the tracking code was only identified in only 5 pages. Most of the documents were noted to be unmeasured. The website also lacked other third party cookies only local cookies were identified. Lack of P3P referencing policy file No page on the web was linked to have a P3P policy reference. The significance of the XML file policy was to offer the website with support from other web browsers. This is an important file for the website since all the documents on the site have no privacy links hence have a higher linked by being tempered with hackers. Otherwise the site had third party links mostly known as hyperlinks. Analysis Generally, the website has been designed in the most professional manner to offer a platform that permits professional interaction between professional users and Queensland University. The layout of the website is very simple with columns and Rows with a background them of an education. The first half of the website is endowed with graphics that keep alternating pictures although they seem to be static themselves. With reference to the view of the pictures it seems that the camera taking the pictures were within the field of the picture. The pictures seem to be objectively chosen as they were linked to educational issue and concerns. Despite the fact that the website was professionally designed several components needed to be checked so that there was effective accessibly as well as privacy concerns. The website is not compliant with regulation 508 since it contained accessibility problems as well as the website privacy was not in a satisfactory standard. The following recommendations could offer the best course of action for the improvement of the website; i. Website Quality- The website developer should be able to repair the broken links as well as able to improve the visitor tracking by placing analytics code on every page. ii. Accessibility- the website should be able to have links to JavaScript or make sure that the JavaScript’s linking is completely removed. Labels for the four controls should be added; the navigation menus should have implementation skip links to allow fast access of other WebPages; alternative comments and the shortcut should be added to necessary objects. iii. Privacy Concerns- the developer should be able to check Nationality bump mechanisms on all the forms so that to determine the students applications as whether international or domestic; installation of web analytics tracking codes on all the pages will be important since free analytics from Google Analytics can be the best solution; an P3P default location should be created the instruction on how to get the P3P can be obtained from http://www.p3ptoolbox.org/; creation of an interim web page that will be warning users that they are leaving the site is also important. Conclusion After a close evaluation of Queensland Website, the site was professionally designed though it needed several amendments to improve its privacy and accessibility. The design aspects of the website should be able to include other themes like that of the social corporate responsibility so as to improve user visitation. References Annan, K., 2012. Website Evaluation Techniques. Journal of Business, pp.1-4. Berda, M., 2011. Importance of Website Management. Journal of Management, pp.1-17. Read More