Week+Two+5365


 * Project Management, Information Architecture, and Site Design**

Designing a website that is user-friendly, enables visitors to quickly and easily find the information they need, and encourages them to interact and return can be a huge challenge. It is vitally important that you keep the user in mind at all times and build as many cues and help with navigation as possible into the site. Like walking into an unfamiliar store, a shopper wants to be able to find what they need and move on to other things. Kaiser states that “It’s important to remember that your visitors don’t like to think, they don’t like to wait, and they’re not really into surprises.” (Kaiser, 2006) Clearly identifying the site, providing contact information, and an overview of what the site has to offer communicates a sense of security, trust, and organization. An index page within the site should be able to answer the questions: Where am I? What is this site about? What content can I find here? What can I do here? And How do I find information? Users expect to see familiar navigational labels and should be able to easily scan the content in order to find the information they are looking for. Accommodations should also be considered to cater to the needs or preferences of users with disabilities or alternative devices.

Kaiser, S. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essential checklists//. Collingwood, VIC, Australia: Sitepoint.

I agree that website users will come back if they can find infomation that is current, useful, and easy to find. One of the ways that we use the website / blog in our program is to keep helpful numbers readily available in order to make referrals to community resources with our students. Each time we make a referral we direct them to the blog site to show them where they can find the resources they need which increases the likelihood that they will learn to research the information for themselves. This is a good example of the old adage "teach a man to fish .... ".

I think the three-click rule is a good one because in building my wiki I found that I was creating a large number of pages and was having trouble with navigation. One of my classmates built a google site and used a table or site index which included many links to various pages. Each link led a new page but you could easily navigate back to the index by using the back button. It helped me think about how I want to design my internship site so that it appears more organized and users can navigate with ease.

I also think the approach in designing a website is like building an outline. You have to think about what you want each of your major topics or headings to be and then build the outline from there.


 * Week Two Assignment - Project Charter and High-Level Plan**