Graduate Project: Website Redesign using HCI Methods
Submitted by: Wayne Weibel, Bastian Tenbergen ; {weibel|tenberge}@oswego.edu
As a class requirement, graduate students will have to prepare a redesign project of an existing page with regards to content organization, information presentation, and visual appeal. The project will lead at least to a semi-functional mock-up wireframe of a possible website redesign, which will be presented to peers in a class presentation.
The submitting students have identified Jesus-is-Savior as the subject of redesign. The site is severely lacking a sensible and accessible presentation of the content. There are no design guidelines used, no content hierarchy is implemented and the entire page is structured in a way that does not allow for a simple retrieval of desired information. A redesign is necessary to not only make the content more available to the viewers, but also create a more appealing and thereby reputable.
A series of design and evaluation tools will be used to produce a prototype of high quality. The presentation will include the illustration of the application of the used tools. These tools will be discussed in the following.
The submitting students have chosen to use the following HCI methodology for their project and to illustrate to the peer students in the final presentation: Card Sorting, Focus Group, and Task Analysis.
A Card Sorting will be performed to create a more user-oriented hierarchical presentation of the content. The Card Sorting will entail a number of 3 to 7 students and will take no longer than 15 minutes. Volunteering students may participate either during class project preparation time or by appointment.
A Focus Group will be conducted in the beginning of the project. The entire class will function as the “experts”, as they all have a background in design and artistic presentation. Also, the students have at least the knowledge level of a novice on Internet and Websites. This combination makes them a good group of experts to be used in a Focus Group session. The session will be implemented as a semi-structured dialog between the students and will take no more than 15 minutes.
A Task Analysis will be conducted on the original website as well as the redesigned prototype. The tasks will be simple “find and locate” tasks, in which the users will be asked to find and locate specific items or information on the site. This will help assess the performance gain in content presentation of the new prototype versus the original design. Three to five students will participate in a one on one session with the submitting students in the HCI laboratory in 303 Mahar hall. Duration per session will be approximately 5 minutes. Eye Tracking data may or may not be recorded.