Working with other members of a team, you will find a client to work with and conduct usability studies and genre analysis of their website. At the end of the project, you will submit a final recommendation report for improving the site to both your instructor and the client.
Each team will be responsible for conducting necessary research, communicating professionally with the client, and submitting the following deliverables in a timely fashion:
- Initial Project Post with Project Proposal
- Oral Presentation on Website Analysis
- Draft of a Usability Script and Final Version
- Notes on Usability Testing
- Draft of recommendation report.
- Final Website Analysis Recommendation Report
Each individual is also responsible for keeping a personal weekly project log and submitting a Peer Evaluation Collaboration Form for the project.
Learning Objectives
During this project, you will learn about and gain experience with
- Providing analysis based on what you have learned about website design in Zen, discussions in class , and your research into website genre analysis.
- Testing and analyzing a website for usability.
- Working with clients.
- Collaborating and communicating with team members.
- Writing a proposal, usability test script, and recommendation report.
Research and Client Contact
Each team is expected to do extensive research. At the onset, the team should consider potential clients and find a few they'd like to work with before making contact. Obviously, the client should have an existing website. The site should have more than just a home page and one or two pages of minimal content. And of course, one that you think has obvious problems is one for which you will be able to offer more advice.
The team should also make sure that the client can, within the necessary time frame (consult the course calendar), meet face-to-face for an interview to discuss the purpose of the site. You will need to know the client's goals for their existing site, who they feel is their intended audience, how they think that their audience uses the site, any limitations they feel like their site has, and the resources available they have for making improvements.
Following initial contact with a willing client, the team should
- Research the client's organization further to learn more about the organization's purpose and audience (who the organization serves).
- Research the particular genre of that site (find similar sites of similar organizations and do some informal comparative analysis).
- Set up a face-to-face interview with the client to fill in the gaps from the team's research. The team should be well-prepared before meeting with the client.
NOTE: Do not expect that it will be easy to find and contact a prospective client. Begin looking for a client immediately.
Deliverables
Initial Project Post with Project Proposal
Following initial contact with a willing client, the team will post a story to the course home page describing the client and a formal proposal for their project. The proposal should be one-to-two, single-spaced pages and cover topics such as
- The purpose of the website.
- Audience for the website.
- Production costs for the project.
- Plans for completing the project.
The proposal should be submitted as a PDF attached to a story post on the course home page. The proposal should be written for a professional audience and follow best practices for report writing.
Oral Presentation on Website Analysis
After completing the proposal, teams will prepare a 10-12 minute oral presentation supplemented by PowerPoint. Each presentation should contain
- An overview of the client and their website.
- Genre comparison research.
- Design analysis.
Each team member is responsible for researcing, preparing, and participating (in a spoken role) in the presentation.
Draft of a Usability Script
Following our readings in Krug's text, each group will draft a usability script for their usability tests. The script will be posted as a PDF to the course home page. On the day that the script is due, each group will do some testing of their usability script with fellow students in class.
After the workshop in class, the team should revise the script before conducting usability testing. The revised version of the script should be of a quality that it can be shared with the client and will be due with the Website Analysis Recommendation Report.
Notes on Usability Testing
Each group will conduct usability tests on the website with at least four individuals not in this class. Following the completion of usability testing, each group will create an informal report discussing the results of their usability testing. The notes will be posted to the course home page.
Website Analysis Recommendation Report
The final document of the project will be a recommendation report based on the group's research and analysis. Recommendations should be based on the team's own design analysis of the website and the results of the usability test. The team will submit the report for a grade and provide a copy to the client. This report will be posted as a PDF to the course home page and should follow best practices for report writing. The final version of this report should include the Final Version of the Usability Script as an appendix.
Peer Collaboration Evaluation Document
Each individual will complete and submit to the instructor a Peer Collaboration Evaluation Document. This document is NOT to be shared with fellow group members. It is due the same day as the Website Analysis Recommendation Report.
Project Logs
Project logs are due by Friday midnight each week. See the Project Log description page for more information.