http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Web-Design/Assessment A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Web Design and Assessment in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Web-Design/Assessment http://tc.eserver.org/35842.html http://tc.eserver.org/35842.html Rating sites empower people to make better choices. Obviously they are subject to abuse (either from the competition, from the the slandered source, or from biased friends). But even in the possible exaggerations from the participants, the ratings raise awareness of issues that you might otherwise not carefully examine. http://tc.eserver.org/35473.html http://tc.eserver.org/35473.html Here is a collection of some testing tools that we have compiled to aid your testing handily grouped into categories. Look out for our reviews of some of these tools coming soon. http://tc.eserver.org/35214.html http://tc.eserver.org/35214.html To find typographic design patterns that are common in modern Web design and to resolve some common typographic issues, we conducted extensive research on 50 popular websites on which typography matters more than usual (or at least should matter more than usual). We’ve chosen popular newspapers, magazines and blogs as well as various typography-related websites. We’ve carefully analyzed their typography and style sheets and searched for similarities and differences. http://tc.eserver.org/35161.html http://tc.eserver.org/35161.html Despite the fact that site search often receives the most traffic, it’s also the place where the user experience designer bears the least influence. Few tools exist to appraise the quality of the search experience, much less strategize ways to improve it. When it comes to site search, user experience designers are often sidelined like the single person at an old flame’s wedding: Everything seems to be moving along without you, and if you slipped out halfway through, chances are no one would notice. But relevancy testing and precision testing offer hope. These are two tools you can use to analyze and improve the search user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/35163.html http://tc.eserver.org/35163.html While goal-driven analysis is wonderfully useful, we’ll explore a different, “bottom-up” approach that relies on pattern analysis and failure analysis to help you understand your users’ intent in qualitative ways that complement the top-down approach. http://tc.eserver.org/34800.html http://tc.eserver.org/34800.html Since there was no way to measure the effect of the new content in terms of conversions, it wasn’t really worth doing. And this, my friends, made me sad. http://tc.eserver.org/34741.html http://tc.eserver.org/34741.html Is your web site in need of improvement, but you don't really know where to start? Have you changed your web site recently, and want to make sure that it's actually been improved? Now you can perform a professional evaluation of your web site yourself. Here's how. http://tc.eserver.org/34333.html http://tc.eserver.org/34333.html A badly designed and implemented Web site can cost your company more than money. Aside from the obvious costs of having the site developed, which in some cases may be quite a lot of money, a badly designed Web site can give existing and potential customers a negative impression of the company. Therefore, it is essential that your Web site is actually fulfilling its objectives. http://tc.eserver.org/34297.html http://tc.eserver.org/34297.html When the concept of unit testing is presented to a manager or a client managing a project, their reaction is often formed from a naïve understanding of the process. They assume that it has about the same ROI as traditional system testing. Unit tests are absolutely critical to writing complex, reliable software. Try to avoid comparing unit tests with traditional software testing. They are NOT the same thing, and they have dramatically different purposes. http://tc.eserver.org/34256.html http://tc.eserver.org/34256.html Automated web accessibility evaluation tools are hard to trust, understand and only provides feedback on a small amount of factors that influence accessibility. Also, a unified web evaluation methodology should be adopted to provide consistent results across tools. http://tc.eserver.org/34246.html http://tc.eserver.org/34246.html The Yahoo Exceptional Performance team has identified a number of best practices for making web pages fast. The list includes 34 best practices divided into 7 categories. http://tc.eserver.org/33657.html http://tc.eserver.org/33657.html I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection? http://tc.eserver.org/33383.html http://tc.eserver.org/33383.html The quality criteria are intended to act as a tool for developing and assessing public web services. The purpose of the quality criteria is: to act as a tool for developing and assessing public web services; to improve the quality of public web services for both users and producers; to increase the benefits from public web services. http://tc.eserver.org/33390.html http://tc.eserver.org/33390.html Web Application Solutions is a guide that helps designers, product managers, and business owners evaluate some of the most popular Web application presentation layer solutions available today. We compare each solution through consistent criteria (deployment & reach, user interactions, processing, interface components & customization, back-end integration, future proofing, staffing & cost, unique features) and provide an overview, set of examples, and references for each. http://tc.eserver.org/33064.html http://tc.eserver.org/33064.html A way to measure return on investment (ROI) for your intranet is to answer two basic questions. How does the intranet increase the level and quality of communication? How does it replace traditional forms of communication? To develop such an ROI model, you need to be clear on the current level and type of communication within your organization. http://tc.eserver.org/33091.html http://tc.eserver.org/33091.html Staff should be able to confidently, quickly and accurately step from the home page of the intranet towards the information they require. If staff can’t achieve this without resorting to search, the home page needs to be redesigned. This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content. http://tc.eserver.org/32881.html http://tc.eserver.org/32881.html This article is designed to help users who are new to JAWS learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional JAWS user. http://tc.eserver.org/32882.html http://tc.eserver.org/32882.html Tento článek je českou verzí článku Using JAWS to Evaluate Web Accessibility. V textu jsou zmiňovány prvky stránky, které jsou součástí struktury webu WebAIM.org a nemusí se vyskytovat na stránce s touto verzí. http://tc.eserver.org/32883.html http://tc.eserver.org/32883.html Este artigo destina-se a ensinar aos usuários não familiarizados com o JAWS os procedimentos básicos necessários a avaliar a acessibilidade do conteúdo web e servir como uma espécie de guia de referência para o usuário ocasional deste programa. http://tc.eserver.org/32910.html http://tc.eserver.org/32910.html One area of accessibility often overlooked is the readability of the content of your web pages. Not every user may be familiar with terms or terminology being used. Others may not have the same socio-political background, literacy skills or capacity to fully comprehend what it is you are saying. One goal of the content author then is to try and identify their target audience, and then ensures that they are not "writing over their heads". http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html Website critic Lou Rosenfeld is shopping for a baby present, but the website he's using is making his task tougher than it should be. Lou takes on www.toysrus.com. http://tc.eserver.org/32843.html http://tc.eserver.org/32843.html Computer and Internet based tests are used for a variety of purposes. From entering education or employment, to improving basic learning, people everywhere are taking electronically formatted tests. With the advancement of testing from traditional paper-based tests to technologically advanced electronic tests, people reap the benefits of easier access to tests, faster response times, and greater reliability and validity of tests. However, persons with disabilities are being left out of the picture and out of many typically-administered tests. http://tc.eserver.org/32637.html http://tc.eserver.org/32637.html Designers are, as a rule, a fussy bunch, and when it comes to their own business communications they’re even more so. Designing a website for an award-winning design firm verges on the impossible. A design firm’s web presence primarily serves as a tool to attract new business from a global community—and, secondarily, as a means to show off. Designers are by far their own worst critics, and their websites have to tread a fine line between being cutting-edge so as to attract young new business, and more traditional so as to appeal to established or more conservative businesses. http://tc.eserver.org/32606.html http://tc.eserver.org/32606.html Establishing a set of reliable metrics for measuring the performance of your web site in the real world is a key success factor. In the next few articles, we will explore what can be measured, how to do it, and how to turn that data into some useful intelligence for your business. http://tc.eserver.org/32607.html http://tc.eserver.org/32607.html In this column we will continue with our examination of website metrics. Last column introduced the idea of performance metrics and the basics of what to measure. In this column I would like to go a little further into discussing the implications of those metrics. http://tc.eserver.org/32608.html http://tc.eserver.org/32608.html Your web server archives the information needed to generate these numbers and many others. The raw data is stored on the server in what is known as a log file. The statistics referenced above are best accumulated through the use of a log analysis program to convert your hard-to-read server log files into an understandable format. http://tc.eserver.org/32432.html http://tc.eserver.org/32432.html Starts to examine different pages, thinking about what items should appear on them, and considering issues such as consistency, usability, and accessibility. http://tc.eserver.org/32438.html http://tc.eserver.org/32438.html I fully acknowledge that a whole lot of very clever thinking went into the construction of Acid3 (as was true of Acid2), and that a lot of very smart people have worked very hard to pass it. Congratulations all around, really. I just can’t help feeling like some broader and more important point has been missed. http://tc.eserver.org/32002.html http://tc.eserver.org/32002.html Eons ago when I was taking the Freshman web design course in college (okay, it was only 4 years ago) I was taught about the acronym of all acronyms, the one by which all other web design acronyms were judged. We learned that good design is based on the C.R.A.P. principles where C.R.A.P. stands for Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity, and when Creative Directors tell you that your design is crap, they’re actually giving you positive reinforcement. Okay, that last part was made up, sorry. “Crappy work” is probably not a term of endearment but rather an indication that your pixels smell. http://tc.eserver.org/31560.html http://tc.eserver.org/31560.html Spending on search engine marketing (SEM) is rising dramatically, yet surprisingly few companies are measuring the effectiveness of their campaigns. In a short survey conducted by web analytics vendor NetIQ, more than 800 participants responded to questions about their search engine marketing efforts and their attempts to measure success. The survey responses provide interesting insights into the state of search engine marketing ROI. http://tc.eserver.org/30439.html http://tc.eserver.org/30439.html If you pay another business to host your Web site, give them a call. Tell them you want monthly traffic reports delivered to you each month. http://tc.eserver.org/29704.html http://tc.eserver.org/29704.html It appears to be difficult for experts to predict the problems users of documents and websites experience. Realistic usage scenarios may help experts to achieve better prediction rates, since they focus the experts' attention explicitly on the users and their use situations. We developed a set of scenarios for evaluating municipal websites, and used them to evaluate 15 websites. In this paper, we will describe the scenario evaluation method, and the feedback it helps to provide. The results suggest that a scenario-based evaluation method may be a fruitful way of enhancing experts' sensitivity for detecting user problems. open, except for the instruction to concentrate on potential reader problems. http://tc.eserver.org/27938.html http://tc.eserver.org/27938.html The relative popularity of a site's pages, the number of visitors referred by other sites, and the traffic from search queries continue to follow a Zipf distribution. http://tc.eserver.org/26929.html http://tc.eserver.org/26929.html Perfection in design is not possible. No matter how much is known about a given business, user group or technology, you can not simultaneously satisfy all possible objectives. For any website or user interface, there are no mathematics, and no algorithms, for deciding which objectives to satisfy in a single design, or even forThe swiss army knife: a balance of interesting design tradeoffs accurately defining an optimal solution within any of those objectives. There are usability, design and business methods that effectively evaluate and illuminate promising directions , but they are sensitive tools, that work more as guides, rather than maps. In general, any form of design involves too many simultaneous possible objectives and forms of solutions to enable any overall mathematical or algorithmic based confidence. An optimal design, in the broadest sense, is a mythical idea. http://tc.eserver.org/26638.html http://tc.eserver.org/26638.html Measuring the live impact of design changes on key business metrics is valuable, but often creates a focus on short-term improvements. This near-term view neglects bigger issues that only qualitative studies can find. http://tc.eserver.org/26492.html http://tc.eserver.org/26492.html Measurement is a crucial part of a successful search marketing campaign, but understanding and using web analytics tools can be daunting. A new book demystifies the process, showing you how to implement your own effective measurement strategies. http://tc.eserver.org/26282.html http://tc.eserver.org/26282.html Accountability is a good thing — as long as it's based on sound objectives. ROI objectives can represent tangible things such as cost savings and intangible tings such as the projected impact your Web site will have on customer perception and behavior. They identify how you plan to use the Internet recover your financial investment and to achieve some specific communication goals and marketing efforts. http://tc.eserver.org/26148.html http://tc.eserver.org/26148.html Do these quick tests on every web page you write or edit. Use the tests for quality control of web content. http://tc.eserver.org/26134.html http://tc.eserver.org/26134.html In this study, 2,684 people evaluated the credibility of two live web sites randomly assigned from one of 10 content categories. A total of 100 sites were assessed. The Stanford credibility team analysed the comments to discover how consumers evaluated credibility online. http://tc.eserver.org/25857.html http://tc.eserver.org/25857.html This article describes how snowball sampling was applied in two different cases to evaluate digital collections. The first digital library was evaluated by conducting in–person interviews with survey participants. For the second digital library, an e–mail survey was mailed to site users. The results are compared and a cost–benefit analysis is provided. The author concludes that the convenience of an e–mail survey is not necessarily the most effective way to survey users. http://tc.eserver.org/25851.html http://tc.eserver.org/25851.html We present an analysis of the Yahoo Buzz Index over a period of 45 weeks. Our key findings are that: (1) It is most common for a search term to show up on the index for one week, followed by two weeks, three weeks, etc. Only two terms persist for all 45 weeks studied — Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. Search term longevity follows a power–law distribution or a winner–take–all structure; (2) Most search terms focus on entertainment. Search terms related to serious topics are found less often. The Buzz Index does not necessarily follow the "news cycle"; and, (3) We provide two ways to determine "star power" of various search terms — one that emphasizes staying power on the Index and another that emphasizes rank. In general, the methods lead to dramatically different results. Britney Spears performs well in both methods. We conclude that the data available on the Index is symptomatic of a celebrity–crazed, entertainment–centered culture. http://tc.eserver.org/25216.html http://tc.eserver.org/25216.html Every web site needs to provide a tangible and timely return on investment (ROI). Your company's web site should be one of the most active and accountable members of its marketing team. http://tc.eserver.org/24230.html http://tc.eserver.org/24230.html Websites are sometimes evaluated primarily on first impressions or personal preference. More difficult to ascertain is their success in terms of communication. Assessments of websites can benefit from research and developments from fields such as usability studies, linguistics, professional writing, and rhetoric. http://tc.eserver.org/20324.html http://tc.eserver.org/20324.html Whether a web site is in its creation stages or it has been in place for a while, it can benefit from evaluation. Like all technical communicators, web authors must determine who their audience groups are, determine their needs, and determine the strengths and weaknesses of the site based on the needs of the audience groups. http://tc.eserver.org/19213.html http://tc.eserver.org/19213.html This paper discusses website usability issues. Specifically, it assumes that the usability of a website depends more on the perception of the user than on the objectively assessable usability criteria of the website. Two pilot studies, based on theoretical notions of uses and gratifications theory and similar theories, are presented. In the first study, experts evaluated three websites on the national park Mesa Verde in a more formal approach based on criteria defined in the literature. In the second study, non-experts evaluated the same three websites in a more informal and personal approach, using concurrent, or “thinking aloud,” verbal protocol methods. Results show that overall assessment of the websites differs between experts and non-experts. Specifically, overall the website assessed as worst by the experts was liked most by the non-experts. Cognitive and emotional needs as defined by uses and gratifications seemed to make more of a difference with regard to website use, and less with regard to website evaluation. Results from these studies provide the basis for a user-centered website analysis model that may make use of but not depend on usability criteria defined by the literature. http://tc.eserver.org/10411.html http://tc.eserver.org/10411.html These guidelines are intended to assist Web designers, authors, and editors in their efforts to create Web pages that effectively reveal—rather than obscure or confuse—the information they are trying to present. These guidelines are also intended to be used to assist in the evaluation of existing Web sites. Of course, the design of a Web site can, to some degree, be modified by the user or by the characteristics of the browser or monitor enlisted to display it. The guidelines, consequently, acknowledge that in a very real sense, users may also assume the role of designer. The guidelines, therefore, are also intended to help users make informed decisions about how to make a display easier to use.