Final Thoughts

It is the final two weeks of the unit and I feel I have learned about issues that will help me considerably in my other design units. Fortunately I have 3 more design units to do and will certainly use the kills I have learned here to overall improve my future website designs.

I think this unit is so fundamental to website design that I am wondering why this unit was not recommended as the first design unit.
I think I was fortunate enough to have studied this unit with a great group of people, great friends!

My tutors were as always first class, but I wouldn’t expect any less from Curtin tutors (no suck-up intended guys).

I have just submitted my final documentation assignment and will submit the cover page for this one shortly. I am now off to prepare for NED24 next SP. I am told it is going to be a bit complicated. I just hope I will get a chance to build a website where I can put my usability skills to practice.

Page Design Tests

I did the page design tests on the employees of the same office but this time I selected members of another department because I thought the previous participants already had an idea of what my project is about and the ‘Get it’ test will not be done properly.

The ‘Get it’ test was successful, everyone got it right! I guess I made sure the site is clear enough after my usability test participants had so much trouble guessing the purpose of the 3 websites I chose.
I generally wanted to know if they understood what the website does and where or how to find information on it. I also asked them their preferred place to start, which was the main menu for most of them.
For privacy reasons I have covered the names of the test participants here but the final documentation does have the complete scans of the page design test papers. You may click on the images to get a closer look.

Card Sorting Results

I should have posted these results a while ago but here they are.
I have separated each top-level category in columns and the rows display the cards that were sorted out by the test participants. The numbers next to each card-row indicate how many participants placed the card under a particular category.


Only a few pages were sorted into categories I did not intend them for, but overall most of the cards were sorted as I expected. Although it was a good learning experience I did not use the results in my final report.
Initially I intended to design a dropdown menu for the site but then I analysed the results of the usability tests and almost everyone liked the menu to the side where they could see all the categories organised in one section. Therefore I changed the style of the menu and since only the top level categories of the menu will be displayed the card sorting results were not used except for one category that was explained in the storyboards.

Final Home Page Storyboard

This may be the final storyboard for the Home page. I have distributed this design on paper with some questions to the same office workers that I surveyed for my research proposal report. The questions are general ‘Get it’ questions and guessing where to find things on this website.

Final Wireframe for Home Page

This is a slightly different version. It still has all the essentials and the searchability of the first design. The only thing different is the header image and I have decided to remove all the ads.

Second Level Pages Storyboards

First Storyboard

This is how the Home page will look and feel. I am not really sure about the whole design I may definitely change it now.

Early Wireframe for Home page

This is just the digital version of my initial home page design. I may change the design several times until the final version is developed however there will be 4 levels of searchability and they are:

• The main menu
• The search box
• The programmatic A-Z search
• And breadcrumbs to enable the users trace back steps and know where they are.
  
  
  
  

Card Sorting Video

Card Sorting Tests

I have conducted my card sorting tests but am yet to analyse the results. I think most test participants organised the cards similarly. In just one of the tests two cards remained unsorted as the participant was not sure which category they belonged to. I had already explained to the participants to leave whatever they think cannot be sorted under the existing categories in the left hand side window.
I have attached the screenshots of the completed tests. It shows the cards already sorted out. I will also try and upload the recording of one of the card sorting sessions, if I can.

First Home Page Sketch

As the final assignment is near, I have started with the design phase of my proposed website.

This is only the first rough sketch for the Home page. It shows where everything will be positioned. There is the logo and tagline, the search facilities including a search box and the A-Z programmatic search. Also the menu will list all major categories. The right hand side will have some advertisements. The middle of the page will list all the new businesses added to the directory since a specified date and the footer will have utilities such as sitemap, about us and/or contact us links.

Card Sorting Video

Since I finished my usability tests last week and I already had Camtasia Studio 5 installed on my computer as an evaluation copy, with only few days left of my evaluation period, I decided to do some card sorting tests and record them as well.

So I again asked all my test participants this week to do the card sorting tests. I may have to do some evaluation of the card sorting results before I can make anything out of it. I have asked Edwin and Marika if I could include the videos on the usability tests DVD since I will not be sending in a CD or DVD for the last assignment. If it was decided that I should not include the card sorting tests on the DVD I will try and post a few cuts of the videos here on this blog.

I hope it works as I never tried posting a video on any of my blogs before!

The Videos Length! May Create a Problem...

I am a bit worried after I reviewed my usability test videos. I think they may be just a little short. I know the assignment requirements do not mention how long each test should last but I think Marika mentioned on the discussion board that they need to be half an hour long. I was so busy with other aspects of the tests that I forgot to think about the time. Also, there is not much to do on my proposed websites. The only thing the users can do is search for a business and they did. I think I did however find many problems with the websites that may just save me from this time limit issue.

My Usability test 3

Test 3 went fine but with few changes. First of all my test participant asked me to read the test script for him before he started the test so when it came to the actual test I didn’t really read the whole script, just the important points. Once again the nerves got the best of me and I did jumble some words.

I also decided to let the user roam around a little on his own and I didn’t really stick to the script very tightly. I think it worked well.