Directions: Read Chapter 3 Site Design in Lynch & Hoi-ton. Using the information you gather from your research, answer the questions below.

Transcription

1 Directions: Read Chapter 3 Site Design in Lynch & Hoi-ton. Using the information you gather from your research, answer the questions below. 1. What is the fundamental organizing principle in web site design? The fundamental organizing principle in web site design is to accommodate users needs. The site should contain prominent information and services that the target audience want. 2. List and characterize the five basic steps in organizing your information? Five basic steps in organizing the information are: 1. Divide the content into logical units information is chunked and organized into groups for quick and easy access by users. 2. Establish a hierarchy of importance among the units units are organized from the most general overview to specific submenu or content pages. 3. Use the hierarchy to structure relations among units users will build mental models to determine the relations among topics when they confront with a new and complex information system. Developing a site with logical sense and consistency display will enable users to find information that they want quickly. The hierarchical structure is easy to understand by corporate and institutional life users. 4. Build a site that closely follows the information structure - three essential structures are sequences, hierarchies, and webs. Information on the website should be built around basic structural themes. 5. Analyze the functional and aesthetic success of the system Feedback from users and the solicit of feedback and reflection on the site organization from users can help the site designer to determine if the selected menu schemes has outlived. 3. What is meant by "chunking information" and what importance does it play in the web design? Chunking information means to organize and present information in a way that will help readers to locate information quickly and easily. The chunking should be flexible and consistent with common sense, logical organization, and convenience. The authors suggested to chunk longer information into about one to two pages in print. The concise chunk is to make the page suit the computer screen. In designing web, it is important to consider users characteristics. Many web users expect to find a specific piece of information on the web. They do not spend time reading longer document on-screen and they do not want to scroll long distance to find information on the screen. Concise chunks of information will provide better experience for the web users and they will love to visit the website again whenever they need information.

2 4. What is meant by "hierarchy of importance" (information) and why is it important in web design? Hierarchy of importance means to organize information according to its necessity, hierarchies, and how the contents relate to one another. The contents can be organized from the most general overview to specific submenus and content pages. Hierarchy of importance is important in web design because it will help the designer to determine a logical set of priorities and how to organized contents on the web in a way that will help users to locate information easily and quickly. 5. What is the hierarchy of importance in your upcoming site? List the sections that you will create in their hierarchy of importance. The hierarchy of importance in my upcoming site is to organize the information from the general concepts to the specific content topics. The instructional module on how to operate the digital camcorder Canon ZR 40 will consist of the following sections according to its importance. 1. The introduction on basic features and functions of CanonZR The preparation before operating CanonZR The basic recording. 4. The basic playback. 5. Evaluation 6. Resources In this module, novice users are recommended to follow the instruction in steps in order to learn how to operate CanonZR40. The instruction is built on previous steps. Users need to learn names and functions of the buttons and parts in order to locate them correctly when being instructed. Then they need to know how to charge battery, load and unload the cassette before being able to operate the camcorder. Upon completion of the previous steps, they will learn how to record movies and take still pictures. Then they will learn how to play back the video/pictures that they shoot. 6. The author discusses site structure and presents three structural themes. List these structures and explain the type of information appropriate to each. Three structures are: 1) sequences, 2) hierarchies, and 3) webs. Sequences information is organized in sequential order such as chronological order, logical series of topics from general to a more specific or alphabetical as in indexes, encyclopedias, and glossaries. For training site, straight sequences are mostly used. In complex website, logical sequence is widely used. Hierarchies uses to present information hierarchies. It is easy to understand by most web users since they are familiar with this kind of structure in corporate and institutional life. Information is built around a single home page. Hierarchies are practical only with well organized material.

3 Webs This structure mimic associative thought and the free flow of ideas. There are few restrictions on the patters of information use. Users can follow their pursuit, interest in a unique, heuristic, idiosyncratic pattern. Information is linked within the site and to the other sites. This structure works best for smaller sites with lists of links and sites aiming at highly educated or experienced web users seeking for further education but not for a basic understanding of a topic. 7. Lynch and Horton discuss the function of home pages and the most common homepage design strategies. Distinguish between menu home pages, news oriented home pages, path-based home pages and splash screens and discuss major characteristics of each and when they might be appropriate to use. Which category will your home page fit? Menu home pages are pages that have menu-like lists of links dominated the page. The links can be plain lists of text based HTML links or graphic imagemaps. This style is the most common type of home page in the first few years of the Web and still remains common until today. News oriented home pages are pages designed to keep users up to date on news, events, announcements, and alert message. Example of such use can be seen from New York Times and CNN websites. Some organizations use this design to make announcement to their employees, provide live information on breaking news, calendar events, or alert messages. The suggestion to this design is that the location and nature of the news areas on the page should remain stable over time to avoid uses from being disoriented. Path-based home pages are pages that have a large group of audience with different interest and purposes visiting the sites. It is impossible to put all information to accommodate every group on the homepage. The homepage therefore is used to split the audience and direct them to specific and more relevant information according to their interests. The information sometime is deeper within the site. Example of this design is university homepage. Splash screens or site covers are the most controversial of site elements. The success of using this design depends on the users, their expectation, and the function of the site. If the visitor has to visit the site several times a day, having a splash screen as an entry point every time may not work well. This design will work well if visitors have different expectations and look for art and entertainment experience. My instructional module on how to operate Canon ZR40 fit in menu home pages design. 8. Discuss the pros and cons of using graphics on the homepage. Attractive graphics can grab browser s attention and attract users to the site. However, the use of large graphics menus or images in the site cause long loading times for pages. Users connecting to the internet via modems or slow network connections will have trouble visiting the site and feel frustrated to wait for the

4 whole page to finish downloading. In order to address multiple audiences with different expectations, dual approach is recommended. If the homepage is designed visually attractive using graphics, there should be an option to access information via text-based menus. Another approach is to use a graphic as a banner at the top of the homepage followed by text-based links. In some site design, it provides alternative text based links for users who choose not to load graphics by turning the graphics off. In my opinion, dual approach is more appropriate in designing the website. Graphic used in the design should be optimized in order to reduce the download time. 9. What purpose does a site index or table of contents serve in a web site? Should it be annotated? The purpose of a site index or table of contents in a website is to provide readers a clear sense of the amount, organization, and context of the site content. The annotation is good but should not be so extensive since users can use search feature to search for keywords. 10. What are site maps and what is their function in a web site? Site maps provide the reader an overview or approximate outlines of the site contents. Site maps can be graphic diagrams or organized list links to major pages within the site. 11. Would a design be different for an intranet vs. and internet audience? If yes, please explain how and why. Yes, a design for an intranet and internet audience would be different. Intranet is designed for audiences inside an organization in order to provide useful information, organize information into logical systems, and deliver the information efficiently. The purpose of the design is to provide employees and students get exactly what they need quickly and then move on. Organization does not want intranet users to spend much time online surfing the Web. External sites on the contrary are usually aimed at capturing an audience. The overall goal is to maximize contact time, drawing readers deeper into the site and rewarding their curiosity with interesting or entertaining information. The assumption that governs the design for internet audience is that readers may have little motivation to stay and must be constantly attracted and rewarded with rich graphics or compelling information to stay within the site. 12. Is there a reason to follow design standards? If yes, please explain why. Yes, there is a reason to follow design standards. If consistent design standards are not implemented, the average user will suffer confusion. Productivity will be reduced. The opportunity to benefit from the Web information sources will be lost. Without clear design standards, the overall enterprise Web presence will progress as an inconsistent, confusing set of pages, and all mere parts of a dysfunctional system. Additionally, a lack of design standards also limits Web use by daunting complex design decisions on new users who would like to develop sites but was unable to adopt a professionally designed system of corporate intranet standards.

5 13. Draw a diagram (using the computer - concept mapping software or a draw program) of the structure of your website. Label each page. You should represent the homepage (index), sub-menus (intro sub-menu, at least 3 information sub-menus, the reference sub-menu) the content pages and the site map. Insert arrows that show the navigation pattern between pages.