Wellesley Water Polo Testing Document

We conducted the testing of our website project by sampling a broad range of people, varying in age and afiliation to Wellesley College, through the use of a questionnaire form. The students who were involved in this survey of our website included Cecilia Flatley, Cassie Chambers, and Marit Schroeder. The non-students who were involved in this survery included Brian Oplinger, Jon Oplinger, and Lilly Barker. The participants represented a spectrum of ages and levels of computer science expertise (two of our subjects, in fact, worked in website and graphic design). The broad spectrum of our testers was meant to be representative of the large target audience for which our site was created (from prospective team members to family and friends). From these six questionnaire participants, four used PCs (3 Internet Explorer, 1 Mozilla Firefox), while the other two used Macs (1 Safari, 1 Mozilla Firefox).

Questions Included in Questionnaire

Using an online questionnaire form we asked our testers the following questions:

Results of Questionnaire

Website's Design

The website's welcome page was an incredible hit, as intended. Participants found it creative, fun, and captivating. One person even commented, "Very impressive. My son, a true techie who has designed several webpages, was also dazzled with the professional touches." In respect to the website's overall design, users found the organization of the site's content well-organized in a thematic manner. In all cases, the site's layout enhanced users' experiences without being overbearing. Several users found the fonts to be appropriate. The roster page was regularly cited as being useful, as were the "extras" like the video clips and directions. These added details were praised as making the website original and interesting. The pages' color scheme was the only controversial aspect of the website's design; some users found the vibrant colors to bring warmth to the site, while others found them to be unappealing, especially for the water polo theme. With regards to the site's pictures and media sources, users generally saw an important correlation between the chosen graphics/videos and the content. The two videos were found to give a true impression of attending a game. Two common problems found with the pictures, however, were that the photos were stretched and were slow to load.

On average, participants rated the site's appearance 4.8 out of 5.

Website's Functionality

Positive feedback was consistently given regarding the site's navigation. One user commented that our site was, "A great combination of artistic design and functionality." The website was indeed highly functional, considering that all users experienced smooth transitions to each internal webpage. They each replied that the navigation throughout the site was very clear and easy to find. The titles of links were found to all relate exactly to the purpose of the respective link. It was consistently made clear that the rollovers (especially the interactive player imagemap) were entertaining, informative, and well-received. These rollovers definitely served our purpose in explaining the game in an effective manner. One user commented that the inclusion of a link to download the required Quicktime Player was considerate and useful.

On average, participants rated the site's functionality 5 out of 5.

General Impressions of Website

Suggestions for Improvement

The participants we surveyed were very helpful in providing constructive criticism to improve the appearance and functionality of our website. It was cited three times that the color scheme was not favored, and that it should be changed to reflect the water polo theme, to be more soothing, and to be more complementary. It was also recommended that the photos be arranged differently, because they were akwardly stretched and were slow to load. One of the former webpage designers suggested resizing the images so that they would load more quickly. Our favorite comment was that the only thing we could do to improve our site would be to, "Invest the hundreds if not thousands of dollars in a professional website program."

Due to the frequency with which we received comments regarding the color scheme, we decided this should be one of the changes we make, switching the focus from warm oranges to vibrant blues accented by orange. Because we decided to change the color scheme, it also became necessary to change the color of our rollover images in the "Roster" page from pink to a more neutral gray. Also, some testers had difficulty viewing the full roster without scrolling due to the large size of our rollover images. Consequently, we decided to resize them along with changing their color. In addition, we decided to reformat the media gallery's picture slide show, opting for a few rows of thumbnail images instead. While the slide show initially seemed like a unique attribute of our site, it became a hindrance when site users could not view the images without them appearing stretched on their screen. Along with reformatting the media gallery to thumbnail images, we have decided to resize the thumbnails accordingly so they fit on the page appropriately. In summary, these are our changes:


Stephanie Brown and Grace Oplinger
Wellesley Water Polo Testing Document
12/11/2006