EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PART A
The report files the findings of a
usability test of the website http://www.nvi.com.au. On March 27 this usability
test was performed by GRIDDEX Solutions. The intention behind this usability
test was to access the usability for the users of NVI website.
There are some characteristics of the website which
are positive
o The user thinks the
picture with the text is nice and give the smooth effect
o The headline are big
enough to catch attention
o The contrast for the
navigation stands out on white background
o The Name of the website
looks good in red colour.
Some
areas required some enhancements
o Too much information on
home page but still manageable
o News website should be
updated frequently
o Links should be provided
with news headlines
Areas
need improvement [DialogDesign]
o Quality issue: the pages
are too long to load, need to separate presentation layer. Using of CSS is
better option
o Search problem: There is
no search facility available on the website. Required a search option
o Broken links: Links for
different pages need to be fixed.
Griddex Solutions reports based on the usability
problems which were found during the test.
o Quality should be increase
by limiting the size of the image.
o CSS should be used instead
of JavaScript for getting similar results.
o HTML tags elements and
attributes should be avoided to decrease load time
o Search option should be
included fot customer need
o News should be break down
in different sections.
Fahad MEMON
GRIDDEX
Solutions
Good
day dear friend, my name is Fahad MEMON and I am going to walking you through
this usability test session. Before we
begin, I would like to read the information for you to make sure we don’t miss
anything. You probably know why we have asked you to come but let me explain to
you again, Kansas State University. We
are working on design of a website and as a part of the process, what it is
like to actual people or users and what elements of the design need to change
or add.
If
you find some options are not easy to use or you are facing difficulty in
finding or performing particular task, so will other people and appropriate
changes are required to make it improve and efficient and that is our job.
As
you use the site, try to think out loud means to say what you are looking at,
what you are thinking and what you are trying to do. I will ask you about this
as much as possible this will be a big help for us (Krug S.).
Don’t
be scared if you do something wrong as this test is not to test you and not a
reflection of your abilities. The website is being tested here and this is
important to improve the site, so we are expecting the honest reaction from
users.
Do
you have any questions before we start? Good! Thank you very much for your time
in helping us to test this website. Your feedbacks are very important to us to
make this website better.
The
test has been carried out on different age group people with different task.
The purpose of the test was to identify the problems with the usability.
Everyone had series of task to complete during the test and the facilitator was
taking notes of all their actions and behaviours. We used think out loud
approach as it was very much related to our series of task. The facilitator
then analyse the result after the end of the test. The users also been asked to
answer few other questions about the website after finishing all the tasks.
The
approach Griddex Solutions used for the test is open questions approach. We
trim down the candidates list and asked few questions after all tasks have been
completed. This approach helped me a lot
to learn about people that I haven’t had thought before the test, Dana Chisnell.
This also enriched my research and enhanced my designs. With this approach
candidates were more interested in giving some useful information about the
website features and draw backs. Once everything is completed we came up with
few new and different ideas which will really help users to interact with the
upcoming system/website/application.
Age
group 20-35
·
Find the latest news
·
Go to article section and find out latest articles
·
Find the information on how to submit article
·
Find out weather report
The user was asked to complete few task on the website.
The visitor had some problems in finding the latest news. There was no heading
or sections states latest news in-fact there was just the heading of news and
headlines. It was very confusing for the user to get the latest news on home
page or anywhere else on a website. User then jump to second task. The task was
not complicated but a user was shocked to see there are no articles available
on the website. There was article section and on that page said recent articles
but nothing there to read or download. The screen shoot will give the good
idea.
The user was so frustrated to find
out that there is no information about the weather of local area or the city.
Moreover if youngster wants to submit the article there is no information
available on how to submit article or information. These test helped GRIDDEX
solutions to come up with solutions and design the better webite.
Age
group 35-45
·
Find out upcoming events
·
You want to call or email editor to make sure that they
received your article. Is appropriate email id or phone number available to
contact the person?
·
Find latest sport news
·
Search for particular article using search facility
This
user was in middle age group and use to read newspaper online and on the go to
keep up to date. The mission of Independent newspaper was to provide
information about local events in the community. We asked user to find the
information about recent events but the user failed to do it. Unfortunately,
there was no information existing on about events on a website.
The visitor was happy to find the information about the
particular person to confirm about the article submission. Numbers and email
address were available on website to contact for desired query. There were only
heading of Sports and small news about it but the user was unable to find
separate sports section or more news about sports. There was no search facility
available on the website to search article.
Age
group 45+
·
Find out for the local festivals
·
Find the links for different sections on website
·
Find the national news from home page
·
Look for local doctor in the town
This user was of adult group and use internet every day.
The person was asked to complete series of task. The user was happy to see the
contrast on the website because it separates it menu bar from the main content.
The user was happy to find the navigations and can easily navigate between
pages on website. The other task was to find national news on home page. It
took so long to user to find out the particular information as the home page
was clutter and full of text and images. It was very difficult to find the
information. The user’s next task was to find the doctor in the town but it was
very unpleasant that no information was available on that and there was also no
option of help in the entire website.
Questionaries:
Instead of using closed questions
(MCQs), I have decided to ask series of open questions to get more clear view
of the website.
·
What did you like best about the website?
·
What improvements you think would make the site better?
·
What are the worst parts of the website?
·
What do you think about the content of the website?
·
Was it easy to find information on the website?
·
Is there any option you like to be on website?
·
How was your overall experience?
The
final step is to put the test result and recommendations in writing. The most
important thing to keep in mind when organizing a report, think in terms of
improvement ideas, not criticism [Tognazzini]. It is very important to arrange
the report in this fashion because if the report will only indicate problems
then the management will still have the list of unorganised information or
problems and no solutions [McKraken]. I suggested solutions in the report about
the problems which we found out during the usability testing.
Ø The heading was good in
red colour it would be great if all the letters are big
Ø User thinks it is better
to have company logo on each page.
Ø Consistency was not maintained,
there should pictures on all the pages in the header or there should be none.
Ø There should be more
section on the website including sports.
Ø Too much information on
the homepage making it difficult to digest all the information it is better to
organise it
Ø The links are broke on the
pages that need to be fixed.
Ø Visitors would be happy if
they can search something on website, the search option must be included.
Ø If there is no information
available on the page it is better not to publish that page to publish it leads
to frustration and users might not come back to visit the site.
Ø There should be hyperlink
on heading/headlines of news.
Ø The section of recent news
will make it easy for the user to get the latest news.
Ø Technology section should
be added to help everyone learn about technology and new gadgets
Ø Picture size should be
limited to 60K for faster loading
Ø CSS must be used to
present the content and avoid HTML tag's attributes and elements.
Ø Weather report should be included
for the local community.
Ø The news paper's important
information should be available for download.
Ø Most users preferred to
have music on the website and some free stuff for visitors to visit the site continuously.
Ø Add feedback pages that
some actions has been performed or an error occurred.
Ø Must add adequate error
messages and provide help to prevent this to happen again.
Griddex
Solutions recommend all these solutions to make the website better and user
friendly so users can interact with the website and visit constantly.
The report includes the analysis and
design phase of the new proposed website. The whole process follows the Web
Development Process and completed the analysis and design phase.
The analysis phase describes what the
requirements of the client are and how it is going to be achieved. In this
phase the document covered mission statements, objective and goals, target
audience of the website. The analysis phase document ted all possible
constraints for building the given websites and what technology is going to be
used. The important thing COST is also determined in the document compare to
all major competitors.
The planning part includes people, time and
budgeting of the application/website. Allocation of personnel and equipment
resources with estimating time, money and monitoring of budget also documented
in the report. Next part of the report covers the design phase of the website.
The visual design covers the story board which actually discuss the layout of
the site, colour contrast, colour combination, navigational structure and the
prototype design of a homepage. This part completes the template on which the
entire site is going to be built.
Media section of this report covers
what multimedia elements will be used and how well they indulge with the design
of the website. the accessibility option follows the Web Content Accessibility
Guideline. The web development process will follow the standards of W3C and
maintain its standards while using naming conventions, file name and other
software packages. Testing and maintenance will be an ongoing process and
everything will be documented.
The whole project is well documented and can
be used in future as a reference document.
The website http://www.nvi.com.au contains the news of local community
and some important national news. It also includes the sports section which
holds the news about local sports and what is happening around the area. The
upcoming events section shows forthcoming events in surroundings. There is a
page or a link that says Article on the website which indicates there are
different articles and another link about Advertisement. The target audience is
local people living in that area. The age group I think is between 16 and 65 in
other words according to website there is something about everyone.
MDLC – Web Development Life Cycle
According to Felki Morris following
picture shows the Web development Life Cycle. The report outlines the analysis
phase for building the Dudsville Online Community Newspaper website.
