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Note: This page dates from 2005, and is kept for historical purposes.

COMP1501 Assignment 3

Note: Many of the pages/sites linked from this page have now been removed so links may not function correctly (May-2004).

Results are out of 15.

12

Sam

11

Ned

COMP1501 Assignment 2

Disclaimer: I present these sites and links here merely for my own personal reasons. You probably shouldn’t be here, and if your site is linked here and you don’t want it to be – panic.

100%

http://users.tpg.com.au/pollardz/watoomba/index.html (Alexander Pollard)

90%

http://home.no.net/vphp/template.php?page=Home (Vidar Einlien)

http://nedmartin.org/uni/steve/ (Steve Gordon)

83%

http://cgi-bin.spaceports.com/~suriyar/Login.php (Darsh)

81%

http://nedmartin.org/uni/tonges/ (Ben Tonges)

79%

http://nedmartin.org/uni/peter/home.htm (Peter Latham)

http://nedmartin.org/uni/taryn/ (Taryn Stieger)

78%

http://users.bigpond.net.au/fireblade/comp1501/ (Johnson Page)

http://nedmartin.org/uni/robbie/ (Robbie Usher)

77%

http://www.clintfelmingham.com/dump/1501/ (Clint Felmingham)

http://nedmartin.org/uni/ - (Ned Martin) Upgraded to 96

75%

http://www.gaters.net/watoomba/ (Anonymous Teen)

72%

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/lucas/watoomba_web_service/ (Lucas)

60%

http://nedmartin.org/uni/ben/ (Ben Snortin Funiistüf)

53%

http://nedmartin.org/uni/diane/ - (Diane Robertson) Upgraded to 87

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COMP1501 - Assignment 2

Note: Copied from http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~comp1501/Assignments/Assignment2.html.
Formatting is my own. Grammatical and spelling errors aren’t.

Due Date: 5pm Friday 16 May, 2003 (week 10)

Submission: on-line

Weight: 35% (Note that all assessment items must be handed in for you to be eligible to pass this course.)

You are the web master for the company Watoomba Web Service. The only function of the company is to hold a course Internet Interface Design. Design the web site for the company including all the necessary pages for the complete course administration.

Please make sure to also familiarise yourself with the School's policy on student misconduct.

Do not put any personal identifying material on the web pages so that your site can be graded without knowledge of who did the pages.

The assignment expects that you will do the following:

1. A user analysis to find out the needs of the web site.
2. A design of an appropriate web site to meet the needs of users forseen in above.
3. Users of the site include students, staff and administration workers of the company.
4. It is expected that some sort of registration, payment and information pages would be on the site. This would of course come from a good user analysis.

Assessment:

Assessment will be according to the amount the following criteria are satisfied:

Visual Clarity

Information displayed on the screen should be clear, well organised, unambiguous and easy to read.

• Is each screen clearly identified with and informative title or description?
• Is important information highlighted on the screen?
• When the user enters information on the screen, it it clear:
  • where the information should be entered?
  • in what format it should be entered?
• Are different types of information clearly separated from each other on the screen?
• Are bright or light colours displayed on a dark background, and vice versa?
• Is the information on the screen easy to see and read?
• Do the screens appear uncluttered?

Compatibility

The way the system look and works should be compatible with user conventions and expectations.

• Are colours assigned according to conventional associations where these are important? (eg. red = alarm, stop)
• Where abbreviations, acronyms , codes and other alphanumeric inforation are displayed:
  • are they easy to recognise and understand?
  • do they follow conventions where these exist?
• Where icons, symbols, graphical representations and other pictoral information are displayed:
  • are they easy to recognise and understand? do they follow conventions where these exist?
• Where jargon and terminology is used within the system, is it familiar to the user?
• Are established conventions followed for the format in which particular types of information are displayed? (eg. layout of dates and telephone numbers).
• Is information presented in a way which fits the user's view of the task?
• Does the sequence of activities required to complete a task follow that the user would expect?
• Does the system work in the way the user thinks it should work?

Explicitness

The way the system works and is structured whould be clear to the user.

• Is it clear what stage the system has reached in a task?
• Is it clear what the user need to do in order to complete a task?
• Where the user is presented with a menu is it clear what each option means?
• Is it clear what part of the system the user is in?

Consistency

The way the system looks and works should be consistent at all times.

• Are different coulurs used consistently throughout the system? (e.g. errors always highlighted in the same colour)
• Are abbreviations, acronyms, codes and other alphanumeric information used consistently thoughout the system?
• Are icons, symbols, graphical representations and other pictoral information used consistently throughout the system?
• Is the same type of information (e.g. instruction, menus, messages, titles) displayed:
  • in the same location on the screen?
  • in the same layout?
• Is the method of entering information consistent throughout the system?
• Is the method of selecting options (e.g. from a menu) consistent throughout the system?
• Are there standard procedures for carrying out similar, related operations? (e.g. updating and deleting information, starting and finishing transactions)
• Is the way the system responds to a particular user action consistent at all times?

Appropriate Functionality

The system should meet the needs and requirements of users when carrying out tasks.

• Is the way the information is presented appropriate for the tasks?
• Does each screen contain all the information which the user feels is relevant to the task?
• Are users provided with all the options which they feel is necessary at any particular stage in a task?
• Is the system feedback appropriate for the task?
• Is task specific jargon and termonolopy defined at an early stage of the task?

Information Feedback

Users should be given clear, informative feedback on where they are in the system, what actions they have taken, whether these actions have been successful and what actions should be taken next.

• Are the instructions and messages displayed on the screen concise and positive?
• Are the messages displayed relevant?
• Do instructions and prompts clearly indicate what to do?
• Is it clear what the user needs to do in order to take a particular action?
• Is it clear what shortcuts, if any, are possible?
• Does the system clearly inform the user of any delay, making it clear that the users's input or request is being processed?
• Is it clear to a user what should be done to correct an error?

PHP is not required in the assignment. I am simply strongly encourageing the use in order to make consistency and maintaince easy.

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My Submission

Watoomba Internet Interface Design Website.

A template/mock-up of a website designed for an internet company offering a course, Internet Interface Design, is included here.

Also included are the same files in a directory called “basic”, but the CSS stylesheets have been removed from that directory. This is to demonstrate that the site degrades nicely when stylesheets are disabled or not supported. The code in the directory “basic” is identical to that in the directory “SITE” except the CSS stylesheets have been deleted.

User analysis showed that the website for a company teaching Internet Interface Design had to demonstrate good design techniques itself, and a priority was to demonstrate accessible web design and standards compliance. Accessibility and Standards icons from the W3C have been placed at the footer of each page to indicate that the page is both accessible and conforms to the relevant standards. A minimum of images have been used, as it was felt they tended to become clutter and were unnecessary. It was also felt necessary to include an alternate print layout for monochrome printing, as large sections of the site would often be printed. This can be accessed from the bottom left of every page.

The design employs a template system, with a PHP function parsing through well-formed XHTML files, extracting the relevant sections, and displaying them in the relevant page. The <body>, <style> and <title> tags are extracted from the XHTML source file and inserted into the PHP template and displayed. This has two advantages. Firstly, it makes site maintenance much easier, by simply updating some templates entire sections of the site can be updated. Secondly, it allows anyone to create a basic XHTML file and have that displayed in a consistent way across the site.

An example is the default front page, viewed here inside its PHP template, and viewed here as its XHTML source.

To view the site, click here.

To view the basic site with the CSS file deleted, click here.

One other thing which might not be immediately evident, but which user analysis brought to light, is the placement of the menu. The menu has been placed so that it will load last on a slow connection, allowing the main content of the page to be the first thing that will load, as this was found to be what users wanted to see.