COAP:COAP-2170/week5

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COAP 2170 Week 5 program

Monday

In this lesson we will firstly introduce some of Google's tools a webmaster should know. There exist many other alternatives, including open source toolkits and expensive commercial ones. However, Google is the easiest route for starters. We then will look at so-called landing page optimization and introduce some light-weight design & analysis methods.

Homework feedback

  • HW3 feedback
  • Some advise on "writing" assignments (structure and style)
  • Reminder: Term project

Google tools

Analytics
Analyzing visibility in search engines
A/B testing and multivariate tests
Adwords and AdSense

We will not cover these topics in this class (take a web marketing class).

Designing / Analyzing home and landing pages

We shortly will present some simple general user experience design principles and analysis techniques that could apply to home and landing pages. We are interested in several factors, e.g. usability, conversion, effects of visual design...

Guideline-based reviews and design
Classroom activity 1
  • Apply Oli Gardners tips to design a landing page of your choice. Pick something that you will want your users to do, e.g. sign up for more information, download a text, register, etc.
Perception of designs using semantic differentials
Clasroom activity 2

Wednesday

The term project

Mid-term exam

  • Exam preparation: Read Important teaching materials (reading list)
  • The exam will be "open documentation". You may consult the Internet. Questions will be based on homework 1-4, the reading list. If you missed classes, then you also might have a look at the videos shown.
  • It will include several questions of various types: MCQ, definitions, short design and analysis tasks
  • Topics tested:
    • Usability guidelines
    • Task-based usability testing
    • Simple user satisfaction tests
    • Personas and scenarios
    • Prototyping with wireframes

Homework 5

  • Create a semantic differential scale for analyzing user's perceptions of the home page (and other landing pages) of a university web sites or another category of websites of your choice (e.g. think about your term project). You are allowed to reuse any scale you can find under the condition that you provide a reference.
  • Test the tool with at least two users and three web sites
  • Present both the scale and the testing results. In particular:
    • Explain the purpose of your scale, i.e. what is it supposed to measure
    • Explain what kind of dimension an item is supposed to measure
    • Report how well the users understood the differentials.

Tips:

  • Make sure to submit a document that approximates academic standards (e.g. it should include at least a title, subtitles, name, date and references and be organized in some logical way).
  • Focus on some aspects of user experience. A short scale is perfectly ok if it makes sense...
  • Find another study and get inspiration
  • You could use an online survey tool for this task (useful if you plan to conduct surveys sometimes later in your life)
  • I suggest that those who already turned in 2-3 prior homeworks could skip this homework. I will give two additional homeworks (total of 7)