Website name: SEO China
Client Name: SEO China
Contact person: Xue Guan, managing director for SEO China
Link to our website:http://cs.wellesley.edu/~seo/beta/homepage.html
Our Google Form includes the following four main sections:
In order to receive feedback from multiple people from a range of backgrounds,
we made an effort to make the feedback form right after we completed the website.
We publicized our feedback form by emailing acquaintances, especially to students in China.
We received a total of 12 feedbacks from both google forms and phone interviews.
The process was a little bit difficult, as google form was blocked in China, and our
website was unable to be reviewed unless visitors have a VPN. So we made put more effort into calling with Chinese audience directly.
100% of our audience is from 20-30, due to the large group of college students and young SEO China members.
We do admit that we will need to further create more variety in our tester audience in the future.
Out of the 12 responses, 80% are college students, since one group of our main audience
is Chinese young student. We have also made phone interviews to our client, SEO China,
and some older adults. Unfortunately, we were not able to get in touch with any alum
of the program in the past two weeks, so our review in the alum section depends on the
senario imagination2 of the google form. We were unable to perform live testing.
The most popular platform our testers used is Macs (50%), followed from far behind by Mobile Phones (33.3%), and 16.7% of our testers used Windows Laptop. We had no testers using other platforms like Tablet or Linux/Unix, hence we plan to test our website in such platforms in the future for bugs.
Safari was the most common browser type with 66.7%, followed by Internet Explorer(16.7%) and Chrome(16.7%). Nobody used Firefox or other ones. Many used Safari, as it is the web browser of Macs, and not many people use Chrome, as it is blocked in China. Only those with VPN can use Chrome. Firefox is comparatively less popular in China.
Most users were able to complete the task successfully, although there were some people who could not do so. Those who were successful commented that the application page was easy to find through navigation bar on top, and one of the phone interviewee commented that from the homepage he was able to find the application page.
One main aspect that made the testers confused addressed what happens after clicking the “start my application” button. This button was not linked to any page, since the page after was not built yet. This causes some confusion. One tester suggested that we write a sentence under the button for now to provide a temporary explanation. Finally, others asked that we list out internship options before application, including intern positions at what specific firms.
All testers reported that they were able to obtain information that they want successfully, an even more successful experience with this scenario compared to that of the previous one. They reported that the navigation bar is clear, and they are able to orient themselves in this website freely. According to testers, “simply by looking around, I am able find enough information on the application and donate page.”
One tester suggests that we add more ways of donation, through online banking or ZHIFUBAO, as these are the more popular money transferring ways in China than Paypal or Venmo.
Most users were able to complete the task successfully, although there were some people who could not do so. Those who were successful commented that the about as well as application pages contain enough information about the development of the program, and these pages were easy to find through navigation bar on top.
One tester suggests that we add more media partnerships to make sure that the agents of enterprises will get enough exposure if they become a future partner. Also, some suggest that we could add the information about partners in the about page, not only the donate and the program page. Lastly, one tester points out that we currently only provide a contact email. However, it will be more convenient to have a place for online registration for potential partners, and potentially attract more collaborations.
Most testers reported that the purpose of the site is clear. One tester answered after browsing the website that, "the purpose is to support excellent young people of China to become socially responsible leaders in business&finance through providing unparalleled internship opportunities and lifelong global networks.""
Two testers commented that they would love to know more about how many internship and what specific internship positions are offered this year. Although the number of internships accepted to our partner enterprises are not determined, having a list of internship offers from last year would make sense for many visitors.
From our phone interview with our client SEO China, they are really satisfied with the current design of the website. Also, most testers said that the website was easy-to-navigate, and the navigation bar is clear enough.
Some people commented on our usbility, saying that our design is already very user-friendly and the website is clear. Some provided suggestions as how we can make the interaction of the user and the website to be even more user-friendly. First of all, the Image Gallery of the "about us" page is indeed important in emphasizing the individuality of team members; however, the enlargement of each profile image to cover the whole screen seems a little bit unnecessary. To make the website more convenient for use, it would be better to enlarge each profile photo just a little bit, but not the whole scree. Furthermore, one tester commented that there could be some more associations of this organization with other organizations, such as links to other similar orgs, more extensions. They would love to know if there is any chance to get an internship not only in China, but also other countries, and beyond the countries listed on the map of the application page.
Taking into consideration the constructive feedback we received, we plan to make a number of chages to our websitethat will make it easier to perform the three scenarios, as well as to improve the design, content, navigation and usability.
In regards to the “start my application” button, if the application website is not finished by the time we moved this website to the domain in China, we will add one sentence below the button just to make it clear that the formal “application” page is not done yet.
As for the application pages, we will consider making a table to list out all internship offers that SEO participants obtained last year. However, we still need to communicate with our client to see how much information could be released concerning past records. Also, if we are going to list out specific internship positions, we will make sure to clarify that the number and kinds of internship offers are not determined. The results depend on the ability and the number of student participants of SEO China program in a year.
As for the donation page, we will need to do more marketing research to know what are the most popular ways of money transferring in China. More donation options shall be added on this page.
We have recognized the need of media associations in the universal footer at the beginning stage of this website design. One tester brought up the importance of having links to social networks and other websites to make sure our site will get enough exposure. We will create connections to other popular Chinese websites such as WEIBO in the future.
As for the imageSize javascript function, the suggestion to make the enlargement of photos smaller than full screen does makes visual presentation a bit easier. We will change this function to enlarge the profile photos just a little bit.
We hope to continue collaborating with SEO China in the future as more information will be added into the website and the content needs updating. It is our aim to put this professional website into use. We will keep in touch with SEO China so that they can let us know of their requests.
Since the project was in collaboration with an organization and we know the site will be put into use, our group put a lot of effort into designing and coding of this website. This project has been more fruitful than any of us could have imagined. The design took a very long time to finish. The fact that we could design something so professional, clean and easy-to-find, and that we were able to create it makes us proud. In the process of creating this website, we do realized that there are more things to learn in the future, like “login”, “application”, “online banking” features. We are humbled by all the improvements we can still make and hope to make in the future.
Leaving aside the practical knowledge we obtained while writing HTML, CSS and JavaScript, we have also learnt about ourselves, our collaboration, our sense of responsibility and our priorities.
Coding and testing to make the website near perfection is what we have always been doing. We made a lot of mistakes and spent long hours debugging. With the help from professors and tutors, we kept on trying to get it right. This experience further affirms that the extra effort and time we put in to a task is bound to bring us closer to success. All the positive feedback we received makes us happy that we went the extra mile.