Internet for Business of Construction Company - Essay Example

Internet for Business Introduction The client is a construction company executing civil engineering construction projects. These are mostly done in Yemen and the Middle East. There are a few projects that they execute outside this area for specific clients, as well. This site has to meet the requirements of all the stake holders and meet the client's commercial interests and targets. When the clients of the company were to visit the site, the company wants them to have adequate information on all facets of their service which would help them in drawing clear decisions. It is also necessary that all critical information if it is available in the site needs to be safeguarded and securely maintained from the reach of competitors. 2. Planning and Design Process 2.1 Client Requirements The client needs the site to reflect the activities of the company. The company provides a list of services and has executed projects across the world in various locations. They expect to put in the following points on the website of the company. 1. Company profile with a downloading option for the profile. 2. A message from the President of the company 3. Regulations and working rules of the company 4. Equipments they possess 5. Certifications that they have obtained from various agencies 6. List of project that they have executed in Yemen, Middle East or otherwise 7. Specialty projects like excavations etc., are also to be listed separately. All these need to be represented and any inconsistencies in the pages need to be cleared. Ideally try to adopt to the web standards as much as possible and make a usable and user friendly site. The client wants all these to be represented in his website organized in an appropriate manner so that it is impressive. 2.2 Functionality The site needs to posses the following functionalities: 1. All pages should be connected to the home and between themselves so that the user can browse or move to any page he wants from any of the other pages. 2. Should have a 'contact us' which will take them to the default mail service provider and send an appropriate mail to the person connected. 3. There should be an about us page which will help in adding information on the company and its contact details. 4. Other functionalities will be as required by the client requirements. 2.3 Content 1. The content shall be in the form of pictures and texts. Every project or service or information wherever possible will be represented by an image and an accompanying text explaining the image. 2. The accompanying text shall be clearly written down concentrating on the grammar and an effective representation of facts. 3. The content shall be organized in such a way that they follow the structure specified in the previous two sub sections. 4. The images may be fine tuned to make it more presentable and by using appropriate colors as needed. 2.4 Fulfillment Based on the requirements, functionalities listed down and on the contents briefed earlier, the site needs to be revised. The structuring of the site will be as follows in order to fulfill the requirements of the client: 1. The home page will have a top level menu and a secondary menu. Top level menu will outline Solutions offered by the company, About Us and Contact Us while the secondary menu will list the services offered. 2. In all other screens the top level menu will be moved to the top of the screen and the secondary menu is moved to the side of the screen. 3. Once the secondary menu is clicked the relevant page detailing the menu option needs to be shown along with further sub menu options just below the menu option clicked. 2.5 Site Security Security level of the site need to be at the normal level and a higher security is not needed since there is no confidential data maintained in the site. The data that is available for the general consumption is displayed. However, hacking of the site by any third party should be adequately protected. To this extent, the site has to be protected by the administrator. 2.6 Time Line In order to make these changes the time needed for the exercise will be about 30 man days. This involves creation of the jpeg images from the standard images in the format that is more palatable and restructuring all the screens. A total number of ten pages maximum is anticipated for the changes that has to be done and recommissioned. 2.7 Cost Based on the work scope in terms of the time line mentioned in the previous section, the cost of the change will be at the rate of USD per man day for the thirty days assignment. 2.8 Future Plans The site can be further enhanced in the future with client details following the same structure. There can also be project details and the nature of the work executed in every project so that the users looking up the web site will get a more wider and better image of the company and its capabilities. 3. Analysis of the site The site is analyzed under the following standard expectations: 1. Colors 2. Graphics 3. Fonts 4. Marketing and Business Advantage 5. Usability. 3.1 Colors: The site uses three colors. The standard practice is to use a comfortable 7 to 11 colors maximum to have a good and presentable working environment. MacDonald, et al(1994)1 say that optimum number of colors provide the much needed comfort level while viewing. For a comfortable use, the screen ideally could have more colors than just two or three; and also make use of sober colors that do not impinge the eyes or cause irritation. The current colors are dull and does not reflect the agility of the company's business. On the screens, it is always the additive colors and not subtractive colors as in the case of print, says Berns, et al.,2 and it needs to be worked out and spotted as to which of these colors form the best match on the screen. 3.2 Graphics: The graphics in the site are mainly made up of straight images that are placed close to the relevant text. Though the images reflect the nature of work that the company is doing, it is not organized to add to the value of the site by calling any attention to itself. In some cases, the photos appear more as a photo gallery without much relating text entered. Also the graphics are placed in a regular manner which is not user attractive. This needs to be organized in such a way that it would raise interest in the viewer and suitable details pertaining to the project needs to be shared in these. 3.3 Font : The fonts selected are not sharp and do not conform to the right selection of font and font size. Ideally we should select san serif type of font for easy3 and comfortable viewing on the monitor, advocates Jack Yan and Associates in their paper (1997-8). The font size should be an easy to view 10 points to 12 points which will enable comfortable reading. 3.4 Marketing and Business Advantage: A well kept site reflects professionalism. Errors in text formed or if there are structure errors in the site, link problems, etc., this will lead to people assuming that the company lacks professionalism. When visitors to the site realize the professionalism of the people involved in the company, then the company has a marketing edge and can convince the people involved much more easily than otherwise it would have been. 3.5 Usability: The screens are organized in a disoriented way with menus in the front screen not matching with the menus in the subsequent screens. Information coherence is also lacking in the content of the pages. The contents are not properly organized and have resulted in the user feeling that the site is not user friendly. We need to restructure the screens and organize them in a more usable manner as described earlier by providing clear link between screens following the same rule for placing the menus in all the pages. Plus we need to adapt to other usability norms in case of fonts, size of fonts, color of the screen and the fonts as well. 4. Conclusion The usability factor of the screens needs to be improved. The site itself needs to be reorganized and restructured to look more professional and more in line with the modern trends in web site designs. We need to adopt the standards suggested by W3C while revising the web pages of this company. All these will add up to a more presentable web site, resulting in better marketing mileage. 5. Bibliography 1. L. MacDonald R. Jackson and K. Freeman. Computer Generated Color. John Wiley and Sons, 1994. 2. Berns, Roy S.,Billmeyer and Saltzman's Principles of Color Technology, 3rd edition. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-471-19459-X., 2000. 3. Jack Yan & Associates, The Best Choice for Web Fonts, 1997-8, available at http://www.jyanet.com/cap/0415fe0.htm Part II Taken up the site http://www.alobathanyest.com/eng/index.htm for further study on the same points raised in the earlier part. The following points were observed with reference to the points listed: S No Points to consider Remarks 1 Contents The contents comprising of the graphics and the text are not ideally positioned. The images and gifs are not fine tuned to give the required appeal to the user. The images are put in a photo gallery format which could be altered to give a better appeal. The text in the web site has to be rewritten in a format and manner that is more communicative and to the point. The content also should reflect the nature of work executed and ideally, it would be better to have the content rewritten using a seasoned content writer. It is also usual practice to ensure content covers all the aspects of business of the company. This needs to be revisited and confirmed. 2 Functionality The site functionalities are simple and does not require to show or collect data that needs to be saved or retrieved from a database. The site is an information source on the company and as long as this is met the site solves its purpose. The information content as already discussed has to go through a major overhauling. Functionality wise, the site needs better defining of work and lay out. There are only three basic functionalities that needs to be covered by the site. One Projects done, services rendered and company profile. Apart from this the site also gives an emailing service for visitors in case they want to communicate to the company. 3 Security The site does not require very high level security. The security up to the administrator level is required to stop hacking into the site and altering the contents of the site. Even this is a remote possibility and needs to be really studied to know the threat associated with the company's website. 4 Color The color adopted by the site is reasonably good and it adopts to the mild color suggestions of the standards which are valid for additive color management. Color alterations are not really required if the client does not need one. Though of course, certain color alterations could be taken up to add to the nature of work specifically to enhance the readability further and to reflect the agility of the company. 5 Font Both font and font size needs to made uniform for every operation in the screens concerned. The menu bar that is reflected in all the pages needs to be uniform and all buttons need to carry uniform fonts and their sizes. They should also carry the same style of typing in their names. The font size should be ideally 10 points which will make comfortable reading. Sans Serif is the font that is adopted here and that is comfortable to view and work on, according to Jack Yan4. Though this might be comfortable for viewing, in some places it is not sharp enough to reflect the font properly. It will be better to use a sharp font on the screen like Ariel Narrow rather than Bold. 6 Usability The usability of the site is reasonable but needs improvement. Though the structure of the site follows some pattern, it is not uniform across all the screens in the site. This has to be corrected and made uniform across the web site. 7 Marketing Advantage The site if corrected as observed in the earlier points would reflect the full image of the company and will be able to produce the needed response from the clients of the company. This will result in a marketing and business advantage. Appropriate changes in the content is also required that would reflect better presentation and organization of data resulting in better understanding by the visitor to the site. This will help the visitor to form a clear opinion of the company. Read More