Web Usability

English 4200/8900 17371/16324 Spring 2008

Website Redesign Project

You may do this individually or you may do it in groups small groups of 2-3 people.

Purpose: to understand and apply web usability concepts to redesign and to create, conduct, and analyze web usability tests.

For the final project you will redesign a website to be useable. First you will select a website, which you will test for usability either through usability testing. Then, applying your results from the testing you will redesign the site (or ~8 pages/nodes). The final website, presentation, and a 4+ report discussing your website are due during finals week.

Deliverables:

• Usability Test Plan: Due 3/18 worth 10%. 2-4 pages single spaced due on paper.
  Following the guidelines in Barnum chapter 5 (pages 170-174), write a test plan for your usability testing. You can ignore the following components: title page, table of contents, and two of the optional topics (test environment and report elements). Do include the optional section on roles of the team. Check out some examples at: http://www.ablongman.com/barnum/

• Usability Report & Recommendation: Due 4/8, worth 20% 3+ pages single spaced.
  This report is the results of your usability testing. In this report you will include the testing objectives, type of test, tasks, performance objectives, test materials (the test materials such as your task list should be appendixes, which do not count towards the report minimum page count), list members roles in testing, test plan, data & findings, and analysis including the cause of problems, scope/severity of problems, and changes and recommendations.

  For this you will follow the general format of a recommendation report, except you will also report on the set-up and design of your testing, along with the findings. You will also need to make an argument for your recommendations based on your findings from the research. Please include larger data analysis techniques , in the appendixes, but do refer to these in your main text.

  The sections of your report will be:

  • Introduction/Overview: brief section (a paragraph or so) providing immediate orientation, the background, main point, and summary of the findings and recommendations.
  • Testing Design: provide details about the problem and present your testing set-up including testing objectives, type of test, tasks, performance objectives, test materials, list members roles in testing, and test plan.
  • Findings: provide the data you found and an analysis. You can set this up like a typical research study with a findings section with just the data and then a separate analysis section, or you can analyze the data as you present it. You may want to check out the example I will send. For most methods you will have textual and graphics representations of the data (tables and figures, like bar graphs). You may choose to put less vital displays in the appendix with clear in-text references to the appendixes.
  • Recommendations: provide each recommendation with data to support the recommendation (likely the support will be pulled from your findings section). Include the benefits of the recommendations and any drawbacks.
  • Conclusion: Summarize report. Restate main findings and recommendations. Include the main benefits of the recommendation(s).

Note: you should keep the users' names anonymous, unless you have permission to use their names in your reporting. But feel free to give them aliases or simply number them (user 1, user 2, user 3,…) if you need to refer to the users.

• Website Redesign: Due 4/29, worth 35% of the project. Using the concepts from the class and the information on usability of the site optioned from the usability testing, redesign the website to fit the usability standards. Turn in at least 8 redesigned pages of the site.

• Website Presentations: Due 4/29, worth 15% of project grade.
  Your group will present the website to the class. Tell us about your website and the process you used to redesign it. Walk us through the site, discuss your usability testing, and present the testing results. Show us changes that came about because of the usability testing. Talk about your audience and purpose. You will have 9-12 minutes of presentation time and up to 4 minutes of Q&A.

• Project Report: Due 4/29, worth 20% of the project. Along with the website turn in a 4+ page paper discussing your redesign, focusing on usability. You may want to draw on parts of your Usability Report & Recommendation and discuss how you went about making those recommended changes. Do discuss your usability testing findings and how you redesigned the site to be more usable. Also cover class concepts, like good navigation design, and discuss how you integrated the concepts into your design. Feel free to include screen shots (like maybe before and after shots) and other visuals as necessary.

Sections: 

• Introduction: present an overview of the reports and a brief description of the project.  
• Description of Project:
  • Purpose for Site and Redesign: explain the purpose or mission of the site. What type fo site is it? Why did you choose this site? What redesign needs did it have? What usability issues existed? Discuss what the users will do on your site. What goals will the users come to the site with?
  • User Analysis & Profiles: discuss who the is site for. Provide a detailed audience/user analysis, perhaps even niches and personas of audience. Explain which users you focused on in your redesign.
  • Site overview: summarize site content, should include an outline or site map in the appendix (does not count towards the 4 page paper minimum) which is properly referred to in this section
  • Usability Issues: present an overview of what usability issues you found with the site from the usability testing and other evaluation methods. Include your recommendations from the usability testing report. You may also want to include screen shot here.
  • Site Redesign: explain all design decisions from colors and layout to navigation, redesign, usability issues, and the writing style. Focus on the redesign you did. Describe how you responded to each of you recommendations from the usability testing report. Show, through screen shots, and discuss the changes you made. Tell me why you made the design decisions you did, especially if any decisions go against what we covered in class. Discuss where your content came from, including images. If any content is from outside sources discuss how you handled copyright issues.
• Conclusion: Summarize the report and provide any final comments and any additional recommendations you have (more redesign, more testing, whatever).