4.+Usability+Evaluation

Our first user scenario is a High School administrator that is looking into the possibility of incorporating CEPP into the school's curriculum. Below are the tasks that an administrator would most likely perform when evaluating a new program for a school.
 * User scenario #1: High School Administrator**

The user easily located information about the program by clicking on the "Program Details" page. On this page she read about the program and was satisfied with the information she found. The user did not have any trouble with this task.
 * User Task #1**: **Find out about how the program works**

The user clicked on the "John Dewind" hyperlink located within the "Program Details" page. By clicking his name the user was directed to the "Teachers/Staff" page on the website.The user reported that having a name with the hyperlink was a useful addition on the page because it sped up the searching process.
 * User Task #2**: **Find teacher bios**

The user clicked on the "Contact" tab and quickly found CEPP's address, phone # and email address.
 * User Task #3: Find contact information**

The user clicked on the "Writing Gallery" tab and was taken a page containing the posts of the students works. Then the user clicked on the "Search By Category" feature to see if she could search for the students work there as well. The user felt that both searches were successful.
 * User Task #4: View examples of students' work**

The user is examining the website and has not clicked on any tabs yet. The user has now clicked on the "What We Do" tab, but is not successful in finding the information. She then clicked on the "Who We Are" tab and has been taken to a page with a Google Map. The user clicked on the map and viewed the names and locations of the schools. The user feels that a list of the schools should be explicitly located on a page instead of having to click on the Google Map for the information. Note: If the user continued her search, she would have found the names of the school's on the "History" page.
 * User Task #5: Find out which schools utilize CEPP**

The user moved the cursor over the "What We Do" tab for a list of the pages located under this heading and then clicked on the "Academic Improvement" page and then she clicked on the "Incorporating the Arts" page. The user felt that both of these sections informed her of the benefits of CEPP.
 * User Task #6: Find out the benefits of the program**

The user really liked the aesthetics of the site and found it be very straight forward while she was performing the user tasks. The only task that she struggled with was when she was asked to find a list of the schools that have already participated in CEPP. Even though, a list of the schools are located on the Google Map she wondered if this was the only way to find out which schools have participated in CEPP on the website. After she completed the usability tasks I let her know that the names of the schools are also found on the "History" page.
 * Describe the results of usability test**

Because our first usability test did not reveal any major flaws on the website there aren't any suggested changes as of right now. Below are the tasks that a student would most likely perform when looking through the website.
 * Make changes to the website based on the results**

Our second user scenario is a current student enrolled in the CEPP program who is interested in perusing the site.
 * User scenario #2: Current High School Student in the program**

The user said, "If I want to find my work, I'll try the Writing Gallery" and then clicked on the "Writing Gallery" page which directed the page to the postings of student writing. The user had no problems with this task.
 * User Task #1**: **Find your (the student) work**

The user went to the drop down menu in "search by category." Then perused the schools and selected one. The user mentioned "If I knew what type of work my friend had done, whether it be poem, story, or bio, I might have selected one of those first."
 * User Task #2: Find a friends' work**

The user clicked on the Flickr link which redirected the browser to the CEPP Flickr page where the user skimmed through photos, finding pictures of other students in the program. The user easily found this link and exclaimed, "Found it!"
 * User Task #3: Look at photos of students in the program**

From the Flickr page, the user clicked, the back button to the CEPP website. The user then grazed over the "Who We Are" and "What We Do" to briefly read the drop down pages and then clicked on "Program Details."
 * User Task #4: Find out which schools utilize CEPP**

Did you find what you are looking for?

"No, I found the types of programs" The user then went to "Search by Category" where he found the three schools listed. "Oh here they are"

From user... “I think the website is good, I eventually found everything I was looking for, although I wish I could find friends by name, a search bar to find friends by name."
 * Describe the results of usability test**

"I'm interested that it linked to social media stuff-Twitter and Facebook. Because it’s easy, and it’s cool. And I can share with friends who are not involved in the program."

The user generally had no difficulty navigating the website except when searching for schools, even though the user selected a school from the drop-down menu in a previous task. The user was informed that the schools could also be found on the "Who We Are" and "History" pages.

Based on the user's request and for easier navigation, we added a search bar for the "Writing Gallery". This will allow a user to search by author-a function that the drop down menu on the "Search by Category" could not provide.
 * Make changes to the website based on the results**

We added the search bar by adding a Widget that can be found under the Appearance option on the dashboard of the wordpress site. We simply dragged and dropped the search bar widget from the widget options provided into the primary widget area.
 * Explain design changes**

"It was so great to see you and the team the other day. I really like the website and appreciate the work you have done. I think it will work well for me.
 * Director Feedback:**

So here are the things I would like to work on, most of which we mentioned on Wednesday.

I need new sections for alumni news and alumni writing, the material for which I would get from e-mail so that I could edit them and then post them.

I will use the Twitter section to list recent and upcoming events, but I can do without Facebook.

One big concern I have is the Writing Gallery. I think it could serve two purposes -- to show a representative selection of the kind of work students do. For this I would like to make a limited selection myself, the other is allow students to look up their own work and see that of their fellow writers. For this it probably makes sense to keep the magazines in tact with the table of contents at the start. Using an index would cut down the programming work I think and make the material easier to use. I need a way to post the newspapers, which I am hoping could be posted as newspapers, each with eight pages that could be flipped through."

With this feedback, we discussed how difficult it would be to have a flip-through magazine/newspaper function, but agreed to investigate that through the upgraded Word Press site. We further demonstrated how users could use the search function to find writing by title, author, keyword rather than have to page through the magazine. We added an "alumni" category within the "Writing Gallery" so John could post the alumni writing and Twitter for alumni news until the upgraded Word Press functionality was ready. We also thought we could add a category of "Director selections," so John could curate a sampling of writings he wanted to highlight on the site. This would be an honor for the students whose works were selected.