Another week, another blog!

Hello,
The Lecture
Fridays lecture led on from last weeks subject of usability and concentrated on evaluation. It was said that evaluation is about gathering information about the usability of a design from a group of users within a certain environment carrying out a particular task. Certain questions were brought up like why evaluate, and when? Evaluating a design can bring a certain understanding to the designer, and also help them engineer towards a target. Some designs have to be created in accordance with certain standards, and evaluating can check that these standards have been included or met. Evaluating can be included as part of the design process, and can come in many forms. Looking back on the last few tutorials I have had hands on experience with some evaluation methods and have seen how it can bring to light certain usability issues when testing a website.

The Tutorial
Thursday’s tutorial saw us returning to the program Adobe Flash CS3. The last time we used this program we were introduced to a method called tweening. This time we were shown some simple links used in Flash designs. The basis of the exercise was to have three frames (or pages), and label up each frame page one, two and three. Then we had to use buttons on each of the frames which would skip us through the frames, forward and backward, when clicked. This was done by the use of Action Script. Action Script is a language used alongside Flash to give instruction to dynamic parts of frames within the program.

Reflection
The lecture gave me a new understanding of the term evaluation. I now understand that it is a vital part of the design process, as it raises certain issues and questions to a designer. These issues can then be tackled which in turn will lead to a better product. I now understand that the main questions when it comes to designing something such as a website as, who’s it for? And what’s it going to do? The answers to these questions determine the user base of the website, and that by evaluating a website a designer can make sure they are sticking to these important factors. Researching usability and evaluation on the web I came across a company that summed up its importance, and is an example of some methodology behind usability evaluation. http://www.theusabilitycompany.com/services/service/usab_eval/

Looking back on the tutorial, I can now see the potential of Flash when it comes to designing webpage’s. The way we were shown of linking frames can be seen as similar to a hyperlink in a webpage. I also used the language Action Script for the first time, and found it to be relatively simple language to use. But then again I think I have only just scratched the surface. I purchased a very good book on Flash last week called Flash CS3: The Missing Manual. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510442/?CMP=ILC-MMh0me#top

Hello.
Fridays lecture was interesting as usual, although when Daniel walked in with a bag this week, I was expecting him to pull out another relic of technology like last week. But it turned out to be an everyday ring binder. Bit of a disappointment. The lecture focused on `Usability`, and what the term usability means. When a website is created, it is created with the intention of being people facing, so this means that the site must be deemed as usable to a wide scope of people. This usability can be measured by three factors. Effectivness, Efficiency and Satisfaction. These make up the usability triangle. We were also made aware of the experience levels, and these should be taken into consideration when designing to certain criteria.

The tutorial on Thursday was with Daniel and carried on with the theme of usability. This week we had to carry out a heuristic evaluation on the University of Glamorgan website. Unlike previous evaluations, this involved us taking an empathic view of a user. First of all we had to think o a typical user of the website and an individual task they might perform. I choose a prospective student looking to enrol at the University and is looking for a course that suits a particular field and their A level results. From this point I had to put myself in this persons shoes and browse through the website trying to complete my task, noting any difficulty’s or general usability point on the way. I found that out of all the evaluation processes, this was the better. It gave you a better perspective, and could be utilised to assess many situations.