Documente Academic
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Documente Cultură
RE: Approval of proposal for AWC’s website redesign & Development: Developing a Student
centered Website
Professor Jan:
In October of 2009, a comprehensive survey was completed by the AWC officers to help
understand the wide array of capabilities available for the Association for Women in computing
website—Maryland Chapter today and identify deficiencies and long-term needs of the current
site, resulting in a high-level vision of the future of the AWC website. In response to the
participants unanimous concern over the state of the present AWC website, please find enclosed
a report entitled “AWC Website Redesign”, to update and redesign the current website.
The Website Redesign Team involved in conducting the user requirement analysis through the
surveys and focus groups consisted of Asmi Joshi, Michon Edmondson, Wendy Mock, Melissa
Perez, Hailey Lin and me. The members of the team conducted, evaluated and discussed the
feedback received from the participants of the surveys and focus groups and determined the
major improvements required for the current AWC website.
In this proposal, we present the summary of our findings. We detail the scope for developing
each of the functional applications for the AWC website. We highlight the main functional
requirements gathered from the surveys and the focus groups. Finally we include a breakdown of
timeline and the agenda for the upcoming meetings.
The AWC owes a great debt of gratitude to Professor Ben Bederson and his students for
assisting us with conducting the website related research at the HCI lab. I would also like to
thank the WRT for its hard work in conducting, reviewing, analyzing and documenting the user
requirements for the AWC website
We welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposal with you in greater detail.
Regards,
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Nidhi Sethi
Nidhi Sethi
Event Coordinator, AWC
2010-2011
sethinidhi@umd.edu
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Nidhi Sethi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary 5
Purpose
Problem/Solution Identification 8
Background 9
Discussion of Findings 10
User Surveys 10
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Navigation
16
New Feature
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Improve Feature
18
Recommendations
Redesign Process 20
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Conclusions 24
References 26
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Figure 1.1: 5
Figure 1.2: 14
Figure 1.3: 19
Figure 1.4: 23
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Executive Summary
This report documents the findings of the usability evaluation of the Association for Women in
Computing website-Maryland chapter (Figure 1.1) carried out by the Website Redesign Team in
September 2010.
(Figure 1.1)
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Focus group sessions were held on campus to elicit comments from our users (students,
staff and faculty). Experience with these focus groups showed that AWC needs to have a web
presence that is useful and functional. The comments were used to identify the shortcomings and
specific problem. During our research phase it became clear that the website needed more than
just a new look and feel. Our intentions for the project shifted as we gained a better
understanding of our audiences and the ways in which they choose and expect to interact with
AWC. As a result, we are not just redesigning the website – we are redeveloping it.
In order to organize a successful redesign process that focuses on the benefits to the end
user of the site, we should employ user centered design methodology, “a philosophy that places
the person (as opposed to the 'thing') at the center…”(SIG, 2010). We want to learn as much as
we could from our core user group of the website – CS students, faculty and staff. We
specifically want to focus on improvements that might help those users such as undergraduates
who might be looking forward to getting involved with on-campus Organizations. To move
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forward towards a website that fully satisfies the needs of its users, we want to put a strong focus
on usability and its measurement of success as “the extent to which a product can be used by
specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a
specified context of use. (ISO, 2010)” This document explains the process and specifics
included in creating the system, as well as next steps in further implementation and evaluation.
○ A comprehensive research phase where students, staff and members share their
views on the current website and their suggestions for improvement, throughout
○ A new look and feel consistent with AWC’s brand identity, as adopted by other
current features.
○ Involving the users throughout the design and the testing process, and getting
○ We have limited staff and financial resources, with limited time for web updates. As
such, it is essential that we have a website that can be easily updated by staff that has
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Purpose
Problem Identification
The Association for Women in Computing has done a wonderful job of keeping in contact those
females at UMD who have taken up a career in computer science. Now, in 2010, one of the most
preferred methods of communicating and researching is via the internet, and it is for this reason
that the AWC website needs a complete makeover. The AWC's website has not seen a
significant update in the last five years and plays a rather unhealthy role in new, enthusiastic
individuals looking for common grounds. Furthermore, AWC Maryland chapter is part of an
even bigger association; a poor website design will leave a bad impression on our Computer
Solution Identification
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This is a very opportune time to undertake a website redesign initiative that could guide and
focus improvements in quality and utility. The site will build awareness and strengthen the
purpose with which AWC was created. In addition, the new site will communicate the essence of
AWC’s vision and values through organized content and a design that will appeal to various key
audiences. Our goal is for this to be a collaborative effort with our student composed and led
Website Redesign Team (WRT) to design a site that will ensure a pleasurable, informative
Background
Definition
The technical Definition of AWC as stated in the mission statement of the website is
for women and men who have an interest in information and technology. The
Purpose
The Association’s mission statement describes its purpose “to provide opportunities for
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AWC Maryland strives to demonstrate that advancing women through technology is beneficial
to the bottom line of business and seeks to encourage more young women to pursue degrees in
technology. Much of the AWC Maryland’s success in the past can be attributed to the ability to
interact with the website’s visitors. About 80% of our existing members learned about the AWC
Maryland chapter through the UMD’s Computer Science Webpage. However, recently our
existing members and officers have expressed concern about the poor maintenance of the current
AWC website and feel the need for a more proactive approach in attracting and retaining women
Discussion of findings
The Association for Women in computing website redesign was undertaken with two main goals
in mind:
• To improve the usability of the site for its primary users (students, faculty and staff)
• To update the ‘look and feel’, architecture and navigation according to user needs and to
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• To create a new look and feel that is inviting to our users and reflects the purpose with
In order to fulfill these goals, we established various methods of receiving feedback from our
users and used this feedback to inform our redesign decisions. After analyzing user needs from
the survey and the focus groups results, it was determined that the website home page needed to
surface all identified main user tasks with ‘one click’, i.e. the most important tasks needed to be
In accordance with our user centered methodology, we planned many opportunities as part of the
lifecycle of the redesign process to speak with users and to observe them using the current AWC
website. Meetings with users took many formats, from one-on-one interviews and focus group
sessions to more active processes such as website walkthrough. The Website Redesign Team
carefully tracked and documented each opportunity we had to interact with our user base and
put together a very good list of do’s and don’ts for the website redesign as addressed in this
proposal.
User Survey
In October 2009, we created a survey with the purpose of beginning to get information
from the AWC main user base of members, students and staff regarding their AWC website use
and the areas within that they liked, disliked or found difficult to use. Further, the users were
also asked to suggest additional features that they would like to see on the AWC website and
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illustrate how that feature will help other AWC website users. The questions focused on
The link to the survey and requests were circulated to the CS course lists and the
participation was also requested by the word of mouth during the class. The students were
incentivized by providing them with a surprised goodie bags for taking the survey. Over 35
participants responded, including our current officers, members, faculty and advisors. All
The information from the survey was an excellent starting point for focusing our
redesign efforts and re-iterated much of what we had already suspected regarding the usability of
the site and areas such as intuitiveness of the site to focus on. The full survey results and the
graphical representation can be obtained from the CS advisor, Ms. Brandi Adams at
brandi@cs.umd.edu.
We next determined that we wanted to spend more time with our target users discussing
some of the points that had come up repeatedly in the surveys. We decided to arrange focus
group in association with the Graduate Students at the Human Computer Interactions lab, on
campus.
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students, staff and members. The rationale behind picking these focus groups was to model all
ideal users of the AWC website which includes incoming freshmen students in CS who want to
get involved with on-campus groups, our officers and existing members and faculty advisors.
In order to recruit student participants, we placed flyers on many of the desks and
workstations in the Computer Science Instructional Center, A.V. Williams, Math Building,
Engineering buildings . These flyers advertised a $10 gift certificate to focus group participants.
We scheduled one hour sessions with each user group type, including one project team
person to lead the discussion and one to take notes. We guided the discussion through some
We are going to look at six university’s AWC websites. These websites were chosen not
because they are pretty, but because each uses a very different navigational structure and
features. We will run through a few scenarios for each site. As you find your way through the
site, let us know your impressions good and bad. If you have ideas or something bothers you,
you like something or don’t, relevant to the scenario or not, just shout it out. Look at the sites
first as if you are coming to them for the first time as a future student, parent, staff or faculty
member, whatever human the scenario speaks for. Secondly look at them with the perspective of
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your own talents and experiences. We want to know what you think website users would think,
The users were provided a system and were asked to look through all the five AWC
websites and walk through with us and answer some questions based on the scenario.
Scenario 1: Do you think the UMD AWC chapter website should maintain the brand identity
Subtask 1: Find where the meeting minutes are on the AWC website?
Subtask 2: Looking at the other university’s website, tell us what is the most intuitive
Note: Only one focus group member went to the “Meeting Minutes” icon. The other
Scenario 3: Would you like the website to have a tool to be able to connect with the association
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Subtask 2: Would you like to have a direct interaction with social media such as
facebook and Twitter so that updates to the website will automatically flow to the
connected social
Scenario 4: Design
Subtask 1: Do you like the color palette of the AWC website? Why or why not?
Subsask 2: Do they have any suggestions as per the font, color scheme or the website
layout?
Subtask 1: Would you like to see any new features on the AWC website?
Subtask 2: How will this feature help the purpose with which the site was created?
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(Figure 1.2)
We then clustered the improvement comments and recommendations according to their subject
matter. These fell into approximately 4 main groups, such as ‘Navigation’, ‘New Feature
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Participants believe that a good website design for the AWC website is very important for
familiarizing students about the mission with which AWC was created:
“AWC website is absolutely a critical source of networking for the women in CS.”
There was an overall consensus that the AWC Maryland chapter website, should adhere to the
AWC brand logo, like all the other AWC universities chapter websites. The survey takers and
the participants of the focus groups, alike, expressed concern with the present AWC logo of the
UMD chapter.
According to one of the participant: “The UMDs AWC logo is so different in character that you
don’t even identify it with the same context as you would with the global logo. It is straying
AWC chapter logos should be created as the chief means by which AWC Chapters can identify
and associate themselves with Association of Women in Computing; therefore the chapter logos
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Some other issues, as addressed by the participants, concerning the look and the feel of the
website were:
“The emptiness of the total thing looks more childish than minimalistic.”
Navigation
Overall, the participants seem satisfied with the navigation on the website, since every important
link is one click. However, during the focus group meeting, when the participants were asked to
find the link to the meeting minutes, almost everyone, starting looking through the website
panels to find the “meeting minutes” link, and missed the footer (Figure 1.1).
Another problem that surfaced during the focus groups was that the users felt that the panels on
the both side of the website looked empty. The users felt that the homepage of the website looks
empty and suggested that they would like to see interesting stuff on the web page.
New Features
Some of the new features that our users would like to see in the new AWC website are
highlighted as follows:
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• A facebook /Twitter page displaying AWC’s latest news stream . Our users liked the
corresponding feature from the Rochester University’s AWC website (Figure 1.3).
– There was a general consensus among our participants that today’s busy and
constituents) respond better when you use multiple channels, especially when you do
Figure 1.3
• Content management that will allow AWC Officers to post agendas and minutes and
make updates to pages after each meeting. This will make the site more current as staff
who are directly involved with the information presented will have control over its
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presentation. This will also serve to update our new members what we do and keep them
Improve Feature
The new website redesign should also provide for a way for the members to interact or
contact our current officers. The following source provides a good example of how to
Figure 1.3
The members of the WRT team then worked on combining these thoughts and the other
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prototype ideas into the layout options that could be explored further.
Figure 1. 4
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Recommendations
Redesign Process:
The information following in this report documents our process of creating redesigned website
pages according to these standards of user centered design and usability. In order to focus clearly
on the main goals of this redesign process (as identified during the requirement gathering
process) and to insure that the most important improvements gets completed in the allotted time
Steps:
The Website Redesign Team will start of by creating low fidelity prototypes based on the
information compiled from the survey and the focus groups. The low fidelity prototypes
format – the main idea was to begin to get a sense of required elements and layout
without thinking about look and feel or design. We know that we want to reduce the
information presented on the home page but still provide immediate access to all the
tasks defined in the feedback as most useful, such as finding the meeting minutes.
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Our next step will be to do a usability test of the final version of the low fidelity
prototypes. Taking the final versions and mocking them up in HTML, linking all of the
pages we decided were important at this stage to test. The prototypes used for this round
of testing will be explicitly devoid of any design or look and feel considerations, layout
The information gleaned from the low fidelity usability testing can be used to make the
improvements indicated from that feedback and begin to put some design and look and
feel aspects into the redesigned pages. Various iterations on the high fidelity prototyping
The AWC website redesign process will be overseen by the Website Redesign Team.
The Website redesign team will provide general management and oversight for the AWC
website.
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The WRT will also assisted by a Graduate Staff Assistant within the Information
Systems School.
The team will generally meet every other Thursday morning to discuss the redesign project and
determine next steps. During the AWC’s normal meetings, progress made by the project lead
will be reported and specific details on any user feedback or testing outcomes will be discussed.
Often specific project tasks such as content creation, layout ideas or graphic design tasks would
be parceled out to committee members according to their domain knowledge and relevant skills.
As the project will begin to move more quickly in the spring and winter quarters, meetings will
be increased to twice a week in order to ensure that the project moves forward as quickly and
efficiently as possible.
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Proposed Timeline
Figure 1.5
b. Timeline
The project start date if approved would be start of Spring 2011 with a completion date
Testing
c. Cost
In our case, our primary constraint is budgeting and resourcing. In order to keep our
budget in check we will need to employ creativity with regards to who will perform
various tasks and what is needed to accomplish them. There are many resources available
online and in books that can be very helpful in helping the team to get up to speed on
user centered design practices, including tasks such as how to perform a usability test.
We will need to look at available skills and talents within the project team and among
our students and perform supplementary research as necessary in order to perform all
aspects of the redesign process internally. All the members and officers of AWC should
their contribution.
The cost incurred during the entire process will be mostly for acquiring our user base
during the testing phases of the project. The National grant for the women in CS and the
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Conclusion
We have spent 9 months developing the redesign proposals for the AWC website using a strong
focus on the feedback that we received from our user surveys, focus groups as well as other
university’s AWC websites. We have heard from many users in many different ways – via
survey responses, one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions, walkthrough and more. Each
time we sat down and observed a user walking through a website for us, we learned something
immensely valuable. After working throughout the entire redesign proposal with the user needs
first in our mind, getting their observations and watching their actions as often as possible, we
are confident that our upcoming redesign implementation will be one that is not only visually
enjoyable, but one that is functional, usable and well thought out.
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References
http://www.stcsig.org/usability/topics/articles/ucd%20_web_devel.html
hq.org/chapters.html
Association for women in computing, ann arbor chapter. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.awc-
aa.org/
http://www.awchouston.org/
Association for women in computing, northern new jersey chapter. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.awcnnj.org/
Association for women in computing, puget sound chapter. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.awcps.org/
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Association for women in computing, rochester chapter. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.awc-
uny.org/
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4. Does the AWC website adequately reflect the purpose of the association?
5. Does it instantly impress; and does it seem to convey an enthusiasm from its website?
10. Can you locate the meeting minutes in the current view?
11. If you could change one thing on the site, whether it is major or minor, what would be at
13. Name your three favorite things about the site, and your three least favorite
14. In general, how satisfied are you with the AWC website?
15. Please make other general comments about the AWC website below.
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