P4 Testing: Sev-A-Site
Kayla Jang and Manuela Molina
CS 110 May 6, 2015
Client Name: Suzanne Barth, HP of Severance Hall
Website Name: Sev-A-Site
Contact person: Suzanne Barth
Link to our website: http://cs.wellesley.edu/~severance/beta/index.html
Our Google Form contains questions that ask the user questions about themselves, such as
Additionally, we asked users how aesthetically pleasing the design was, how easy it was to navigate our site, and how informational it was depending on who the user was (a current resident in Severance Hall, a current Wellesley student but not in Sev, or not a Wellesley student). Finally, we asked for any suggestions for improvement in any aspects of our website.
Link to the Google form: https://docs.google.com/a/wellesley.edu/forms/d/1sCGjSUjcSfg9WdgDzmEcEo7N9-SvibfceSt7g9etYfM/viewform
In order to receive feedback from multiple people from a variety of backgrounds, we made an effort to make the feedback form right after we completed the website. We publicized our feedback form by emailing the form. Our intended audience for our website was current residents of Severance, Wellesley students who might be interested in living in Sev in a future year, and prospective Wellesley students. Thus, we sent the form to current students living in Severance Hall, current Wellesley students (not living in Sev), and non-Wellesley students. We were surprised by the number of people who provided us with feedback, totalling a number of 20 people. Out of the 21 responses, 76% identified as college-aged students (ages 19-24) and 24% as high-schoolers, or potential Wellesley students (13-18 years old). Of the responses we got, 57% were Wellesley students living in Sev, 24% were Wellesley students not currently living in Sev, and 14% were not Wellesley students. Overall, we were happy with the amount of feedback we received, including the two live testing cases we got. In both of these cases, the users were Wellesley students not living in Sev, and both said that the Website shared information they had never heard or seen from other parts of the College. Furthermore, the website itself is appealing with the background image, but some pages have a lot going on (i.e a lot of information and a lot of different colors).
The most popular platform our testers used was a PC (55%), followed closely by Macs (40%). One person used an android smart phone to view our website. We had no testers using other platforms like Linux/Unix, hence we plan to test our website in such platforms in the future for bugs.
Chrome was the most common browser type by far with 85%, followed by Safari (15%). These were the only two browsers people used, although we hinted at using other browsers by adding ones such as Internet Explorer and Firefox as choices in the multiple choice question. We hope to test our website using Internet Explorer and firefox in the future.
Out of all the responses we received, 10% rated the design a 2 (out of 5, with 1 being poor and 5 being good), 10% rated it a 3, 50% rated it a 4, and 30% rated it a 5. Multiple people complained that the font was "difficult to read" and "a bit childish." Moreover, there were multiple criticisms about the background picture being too much (too colorful and too distracting). Others said that the Videos and Photo Gallery page needs some work, especially with the image distortion. Otherwise, people were happy with the color scheme.
Testers reported mostly having an easy time navigating our website. In particular, nobody rated ease of navigation below a 3 (out of 5, with 1 being hard to navigate and 5 being easy). Only one person rated it a 3, 25% rated it a 4, and 70% rated it easy with a 5. Some suggestions for further improvement included re-organizing the navbar so that there were fewer tabs. Moreover, there were suggestions to re-order the navbar to put the Ginger page more towards the left-hand-side of the screen to keep the "fun stuff near the front."
Most users, whether a Wellesley student or not, said that the website was informational. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not informational and 5 being very informational, only one Wellesley student and one current Severance resident rated it a 2. Furthermore, one person each, a Wellesley student, a current Sev resident, and a non-Wellesley student rated it a 3. Most others rated it a 4 or a 5 (25% of Wellesley students rated it a 4, and 55% rated it a 5). Out of the Severance Hall residents that filled out our questionnaire, 25% rated it a 4 and 58% rated it a 5. For non-Wellesley students, one person rated it a 4 and one person rated it a 5. Overall, we believe that our current information is relevant and helpful for our audience, and we hope to expand by including more photos and videos as our client provides more and updating bios and announcements.
Taking into consideration the constructive feedback we received, we plan to make a number of changes to our website that will improve the design, content, and navigation.
Given the responses to the questionnaire, our first priority would be to look into changing the font for the whole website. Because multiple people have complained about it being hard to read, which is an important aspect of a website, we hope to improve our website by making it more legible. Furthermore, another comment we received multiple times was that the background image was too colorful and distracting, so we would look into changing that. However, some other people have said that they actually enjoy the background photo, so we would experiment and ask more people which background images they find more visually appealing and not as distracting at the same time.
As for the Videos and Photo Gallery page, we will try to center the images once they are clicked on to be enlarged. Also, we will try to make it more obvious that the image is enlarged by making the border more obvious. Finally, we will try to fix the aspect ratio so that the images are not distorted when enlarged. Hopefully these three changes will make the Videos and Photo Gallery page a lot more appealing.
For the navbar, we will think about a way to re-organize the labels, so that we consolidate the 8 into maybe 4 or 5. This way, the navbar will look less crowded, which was one of the suggestions we received. Along with shrinking the navbar, we would think about adjusting the order of the navbar as it reads from left to right. Although some people suggest moving the Ginger page more towards the left side, others believe that it is less pertinent in terms of information, especially for prospective students looking to find out more about what rooms in Sev look like or who to contact to set up a tour of Sev once on Wellesley campus.
In terms of the content of our website, we plan to upload more pictures and videos as they become available from the client. Hopefully, as this website gets used more and more in future years, the single Videos and Photo Gallery can expand to 2 or 3 galleries and include hundreds of photos and videos. In addition to the photos and videos, we hope to update the Announcements part of the website at least once a week. House Council has organized a group called the Sev-A-Site Council that is in charge of updating the Announcements each week. They are also in charge of updating bios for the About page, as new members of House Council join.
We hope to continue helping Severance Hall in the future as the website audience grows and the content needs updating. It is our aim to help Severance Hall be a resource for both current Wellesley students and prospective students.
This project has been very rewarding. We came a very long way from our primary mockups to our fully-functioning website in such a short time. The notion that we could create something that will actually be in use makes us proud, and we are humbled by all the improvements we can still make and hope to make in the future. Leaving aside the challenging path of learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript well enough to understand and use it, we have also learned about teamwork, communication, and thoroughness.
Being persistent seemed to be the general theme that defined this whole process for us. Although we made a lot of mistakes and spent long hours debugging, we kept on trying to get what we wanted to accomplish right, and eventually we did. Strenuous as it may be, we have learned that the extra effort and time we put into a task will end up rewarding us with success. The bits of positive feedback we received make us happy that we spent the time we did on this project.
This project has been a complete team effort - we have both dedicated a lot of time to making the website, and we have helped each other despite the times of not being able to the light at the end of the tunnel. We worked efficiently and in coordination, and our teamwork was solidified by our mutual respect. Through designing and coding the Sev-A-Site, we have realized how important communication is. Moreover, working with a partner for such an extended amount of time has taught us that the thorougness check is really necessary and useful for such a large project.
