implementation
2nd prototype
The second prototype can be viewed here.
This is the refined version of the first prototype. It will be sent to 24% of the users that carried out the survey during the investigation stage of the project cycle. The 24% that I have selected are those who said that they had Microsoft Windows as their operating system but are using a web browser other than Internet Explorer.
questionnaire
analysis of feedback
Many of the end-users found the information on the home page slightly ambiguous. Initially, they found it difficult to understand the company's main focus. Many suggestions were made on this subject.
"People want to know what services your company provides instantly. They don't want to have to delve deeper into the site to find out," someone commented.
Due to the amount of negative feedback received, it is essential that this issue must be addressed. Thankfully, some good suggestions where made to solve this problem. Below is an example:
"A summation of what the company delivers should be included in the home page's title."
In the 2nd prototype the page's title is simply: "Pipeline Software Development Limited". But because PSD's products currently focus on anti money laundering and fraud detection it would be sensible to follow the suggestion and include this somewhere in the title.
The content of the home page will also need to be adjusted slightly, to give it a clearer meaning. For instance, in the second paragraph it reads: "Today's institutions are..." What institutions? The language used is not clear. PSD's current focus is on financial security so it would be better if the paragraph read: "Today's financial institutions are..."
I believe these two changes would address this issue sufficiently but just to make sure I am going to cut the first paragraph which gives an small introductory explanation of who the company is and replace it with a summary of what the company does. I will also make this text stick out and place a relevant image behind it.
Some users mentioned that they were pleased with the semantic markup. Giving all internet users at least basic level access to the whole site. But they would also like to see more accessibility controls available. One user suggested that I provide the ability to increase or decrease the size of the text on each page, and another suggested that a 'high contrast' theme could be helpful.
They did recognise that the implementation of these suggestions would be quite difficult and because of the validity of the XHTML it was not totally necessary, but I can already see the positive effects that these functions could bring so I will strive to instigate them in a way that conforms to W3C standards. Already made JavaScript will be required.
Still sticking to the subject of accessibility, some users found it very hard to read the "What's in the pipeline?" section of the front page simply because the text colour (white) did not contrast with the background colour (pinky-red) strikingly enough. To solve this problem I will be changing the background colour to dusty-black.
Users found that the contact us section of the site was the most useful, but one suggestion for improving it was made. One user believed that the contact form should have validation rules applied to it. This would save users from entering invalid information and therefore save time and stop miscommunication. This is an excellent idea, a little more JavaScript will be required.
Thankfully nobody got lost in the website, I would imagine that was mainly due to it's small size but I would like to think that it was at least due in part to the succinct title I gave to each page. I do feel that they effectively describe what is contained therein. During my own examination of the website I noticed that the home page was not included in the navigational system. This should be in it because it is apart of the 'cycle'. It will be inserted during the refining process.
final refinement of the website...
Here I am just going to show how I performed just two of the refinements required by the feedback. (You can see the final version of the website on the next page with all the refinements implemented.)
changing the title of the home page
I did this simply by editing the source code of the home page. Below is a snapshot of me doing this in Notepad:
I shortened "Pipeline Software Development Limited" to "psd:" and inserted a summary of what the company does.
adjusting the background colour of "#pipeline"
This was done in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 using the CSS toolbar. Shown below:
Overall the 2nd prototype has been very successful and I believe that this proves that working with the right type of end-users is essential.
Click next to see the final version of the site before testing...