Here is a link to my final page, analyzing the navagation, layout, color, and fonts of work done by students on the redesign of the Elon URP website.
http://whalebone.elon.edu/cis310/akay2/final
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Testing Caroline's URP Web Site
I was paired up with Caroline Fox and tested her site using the 7 tasks provided. Here are my results.
(1) You are a student who has traveled to a conference on a travel grant. You will need to have the cost of your plane ticket reimbursed out of your travel grant. Start at the home page, end with a reimbursement form.
In order to navigate to this page, all I had to do was go to the grants page which was listed in the top navigation. From there I scrolled down to the travel grants section on the left and clicked on the reimbursement form. It was easy to find and I had no trouble.
(2) You are an Elon faculty member and you are unsure of how many hours per week you are expected to spend mentoring a student for a 499 course. Start at the SURP homepage and end with the 499 Compensation Policy document.
Since Caroline had a 499 section listed int he top navigation, it was very easy to find this document. It was listed within the vertical left navigation menu within the 499 page.
(3) You are a student who wants to attend SURF presentations. You can't find the schedule for the presentations on the normal Elon Homepage. Start at the Undergraduate Research Page and end with a schedule of events.
I was able to find the schedule of events very easily on the left hand vertical navigation bar within the SURF section of Caroline's URP page.
(4) You are a student who wants to find example abstracts from previous years for SURF. Start from the home page, and end with at least 3 years of previous years examples.
This was also within the left hand vertical navigation bar within the SURF web site.
(5) You are a member of the faculty, and you have some questions about undergrad research. You need to know who from your department is on the Undergraduate Research Program Advisory Committee, if anyone.
I could not find any information on faculty members involved with URP. Caroline needs to add this into her web site somehow.
(6) You are a student who wants to find out more about the RAWLS Scholarship. One of your professors mentioned how great an opportunity it would be if you were to apply and get this scholarship.
I had a little bit of trouble finding information on RAWLS. But after reviewing the question again, I realized maybe I could find it under grants since it was asking about scholarships. I think RAWLS might need a separate page, however.
(7) You're in the SURE program, and you want to know when its summer banquet is.
I was able to find the SURE schedule within the SURE section that Carolina made. I found out that the banquet is July 30th.
(1) You are a student who has traveled to a conference on a travel grant. You will need to have the cost of your plane ticket reimbursed out of your travel grant. Start at the home page, end with a reimbursement form.
In order to navigate to this page, all I had to do was go to the grants page which was listed in the top navigation. From there I scrolled down to the travel grants section on the left and clicked on the reimbursement form. It was easy to find and I had no trouble.
(2) You are an Elon faculty member and you are unsure of how many hours per week you are expected to spend mentoring a student for a 499 course. Start at the SURP homepage and end with the 499 Compensation Policy document.
Since Caroline had a 499 section listed int he top navigation, it was very easy to find this document. It was listed within the vertical left navigation menu within the 499 page.
(3) You are a student who wants to attend SURF presentations. You can't find the schedule for the presentations on the normal Elon Homepage. Start at the Undergraduate Research Page and end with a schedule of events.
I was able to find the schedule of events very easily on the left hand vertical navigation bar within the SURF section of Caroline's URP page.
(4) You are a student who wants to find example abstracts from previous years for SURF. Start from the home page, and end with at least 3 years of previous years examples.
This was also within the left hand vertical navigation bar within the SURF web site.
(5) You are a member of the faculty, and you have some questions about undergrad research. You need to know who from your department is on the Undergraduate Research Program Advisory Committee, if anyone.
I could not find any information on faculty members involved with URP. Caroline needs to add this into her web site somehow.
(6) You are a student who wants to find out more about the RAWLS Scholarship. One of your professors mentioned how great an opportunity it would be if you were to apply and get this scholarship.
I had a little bit of trouble finding information on RAWLS. But after reviewing the question again, I realized maybe I could find it under grants since it was asking about scholarships. I think RAWLS might need a separate page, however.
(7) You're in the SURE program, and you want to know when its summer banquet is.
I was able to find the SURE schedule within the SURE section that Carolina made. I found out that the banquet is July 30th.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Day 20 - C
Card Sorting
URP
Brief description of URP and mission
Committe names & Departments
How students can get involved
Calendar of improtant dates for all URP programs
What is undergraduate research?
SURF
Application
Schedule
Description of review process
What is surf day
Examples
SURE
Application
Application instructions
Description of SURE
Schedule
List of projects
Elon College Fellows 499
Registration form
Registration deadlines
Compensation policy document for faculty
Registration for a course
NCUR
Description of NCUR
Description of NCUR conference
Application instructions for NCUR conference
GRANTS
research grants
all the info dealing with that
travel grants
all the info dealing with that
RAWLS
all the info dealing with that
Day 20 - B
Our group was assigned a hybrid organizational scheme. We chose to combine audience specific, task oriented, and chronological.
Hybrid Scheme
The site would start off with audience specific, where you would be able to chose between student and faculty/professor. Inside those catagories would be a task oriented organizational scheme where you could see the different options for students or faculty, depending on which one you initially chose. Each task would then have a chronological organization inside of it that tracked the steps needed to compelte each task. We would also include a section of the site that would go through past years and examples of work using a chronological organizational scheme.
I believe a hybrid scheme is the best choice since you are able to pick the best of the more specific schemes and combine them into the most useful organization for a web site.
Hybrid Scheme
The site would start off with audience specific, where you would be able to chose between student and faculty/professor. Inside those catagories would be a task oriented organizational scheme where you could see the different options for students or faculty, depending on which one you initially chose. Each task would then have a chronological organization inside of it that tracked the steps needed to compelte each task. We would also include a section of the site that would go through past years and examples of work using a chronological organizational scheme.
I believe a hybrid scheme is the best choice since you are able to pick the best of the more specific schemes and combine them into the most useful organization for a web site.
Day 20
User: Student
Goal A: Become a presenter at SURF.
Task 1: Find out about SURF.
Subtask 1: What is SURF
Subtask 2: How to become eligible
Subtask 3: When are deadlines?
Subtask 4: When is SURF?
Task 2: Apply for SURF
Subtask 1: Find and download application
Subtask 2: Submit application
Goal A: Become a presenter at SURF.
Task 1: Find out about SURF.
Subtask 1: What is SURF
Subtask 2: How to become eligible
Subtask 3: When are deadlines?
Subtask 4: When is SURF?
Task 2: Apply for SURF
Subtask 1: Find and download application
Subtask 2: Submit application
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
SURF Web Site Problems
Problems with the Elon SURF Web site...
While the header looks OKAY on the main page, I would suggest a brand new header. The bevel effect is pretty outdated. As a whole, the header is pretty dull looking.
There is very poor alignment throughout the whole site. This needs to be addressed ASAP.
The colors are pretty weak. The bright red on top of the bright yellow is too much saturation.
It appears as if the content is there, it is just laid out and formatted poorly. Links need to be obvious and show whether or not they are pointing to a new page, a .pdf, a .doc, or something else.
As far as navigation goes, it is hard to tell where you are while navigating through the different pages. There should be an indicator on every page.
Headers for specific pages need to either be images, or a better font/color so that they don't look as tacky. Solid maroon as a header with black content text is a lot better than trying to make headers "fancy" with three different colors.
SOLUTION: redesign the site entirely, but make sure old pages are saved so that no content is lost.
While the header looks OKAY on the main page, I would suggest a brand new header. The bevel effect is pretty outdated. As a whole, the header is pretty dull looking.
There is very poor alignment throughout the whole site. This needs to be addressed ASAP.
The colors are pretty weak. The bright red on top of the bright yellow is too much saturation.
It appears as if the content is there, it is just laid out and formatted poorly. Links need to be obvious and show whether or not they are pointing to a new page, a .pdf, a .doc, or something else.
As far as navigation goes, it is hard to tell where you are while navigating through the different pages. There should be an indicator on every page.
Headers for specific pages need to either be images, or a better font/color so that they don't look as tacky. Solid maroon as a header with black content text is a lot better than trying to make headers "fancy" with three different colors.
SOLUTION: redesign the site entirely, but make sure old pages are saved so that no content is lost.
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