Jessamyn Smallenburg
User-Experience Design and Web Development
IPCAA Website Evaluations
Project Definition: I conceived of our name, Web Curators, based on the subject matter of our client. The University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology is a doctoral program in the arts and material culture of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. The program was planning to redesign their website, and our task was to provide them with information to inform their design decisions.
My Role: I created the interaction flow map using Adobe Illustrator. I also authored portions of every report, including the findings section in the comparative evaluation, described below. I acted as the recruiter and scheduler during the usability testing portion of this semester-long project. I was also responsible for assembling and distributing the agenda prior to each weekly team meeting.
Final Outcome: Through the process of researching and writing the reports and constructing the flow map, I gained knowledge and experience with several methods of conceptualization.
Conceptual Learning Milestones:
Project Definition: I conceived of our name, Web Curators, based on the subject matter of our client. The University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology is a doctoral program in the arts and material culture of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. The program was planning to redesign their website, and our task was to provide them with information to inform their design decisions.
My Role: I created the interaction flow map using Adobe Illustrator. I also authored portions of every report, including the findings section in the comparative evaluation, described below. I acted as the recruiter and scheduler during the usability testing portion of this semester-long project. I was also responsible for assembling and distributing the agenda prior to each weekly team meeting.
Comparative Evaluation
The comparative evaluation is intended to make direct comparisons between the client's product and that of the competition. The instructors, Mark Newman and David Lee, provided us with feedback that included the following request:
The comparative evaluation is intended to make direct comparisons between the client's product and that of the competition. The instructors, Mark Newman and David Lee, provided us with feedback that included the following request:
"Web Curators, David and I both thought your work on the competitive evaluation assignment was excellent and would like to share your submission with the rest of the class, along with our comments. Would that be OK with you?"Our competitive evaluations highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the client's competitors. From our evaluations, we derived a set of key recommendations for the IPCAA website. Please see the report to view our major findings and recommendations for the improvement of the IPCAA website.
Usability Evaluation
We also received excellent feedback for our usability study report. We conducted the usability testing with several undergraduates, and recorded their actions on the screen with Camtasia, a software product built by TechSmith.
A Few Key Findings:
We also received excellent feedback for our usability study report. We conducted the usability testing with several undergraduates, and recorded their actions on the screen with Camtasia, a software product built by TechSmith.
A Few Key Findings:
- Certain pages are lengthy, causing users to feel overwhelmed and requiring excessive scrolling.
Recommendation: As a temporary fix, long pages should have within-page links to help users find information faster. - The course list is difficult to find.
Recommendation: Add a link to the course list in the sub-navigation menu. - Sub-navigation menu is not readily understood.
Recommendation: Change the sub-navigation menu into a vertical menu, and place it on the left-hand side of the screen.
Heuristic Evaluation
My team conducted in-depth heuristic analyses based on the ten industry-standard heuristics developed by Jakob Nielsen. Two of our most important findings and recommendations are listed below:
My team conducted in-depth heuristic analyses based on the ten industry-standard heuristics developed by Jakob Nielsen. Two of our most important findings and recommendations are listed below:
- Certain pages are lengthy, causing users to feel overwhelmed.
Recommendation: As a temporary fix, long pages should have within-page links to help users find information faster. - Paragraphs are long and require greater reading effort.
Recommendation: Rewrite long paragraphs on the aforementioned pages to make them smaller and more readable. Limit the number of words in a sentence to twenty and the number of sentences in paragraphs to five.
Final Outcome: Through the process of researching and writing the reports and constructing the flow map, I gained knowledge and experience with several methods of conceptualization.
Conceptual Learning Milestones:
- Conceptualize the structure and organization of a website.
- Conceive of a design for a visual representation of the structure and organization of a website.
- Conceptualize the future progression of a long-term project.
- Consolidate users' characteristics into archetypal profiles of system users.
- Visualize the user experience and see the system through the users' eyes.