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speeds, download times, changing browser capabilities, standards and coding. The design sequence and
features we developed evolved through may errors and repeated formative evaluations by users and focus
groups as we struggled with answering the following six questions: What is the scope of our project? What
content are we going to provide? How will we provide it? What will it look like? How will people locate the
information? How will we manage the site?
Our experience with the Instructional Science site has allowed us to generate a guideline for the creation of
future Web projects at the College of Education. New projects will go through the following development
stages:
1. preliminary planning
2. design planning: audience identification, audience needs assessment, content determination, cognitive
design considerations, visual design considerations, usability facilitation
3. management planning
We will share these guidelines with you as well as some of the mistakes we made, the difficulties we
encountered, and the lessons we learned during this project. We will first present the guideline and then
discuss how or why it evolved.
Procedures
Preliminary Planning
The designer begins by meeting with the person commissioning the project and determining the general goals,
degree of autonomy, time frame, funding, resources (both people and equipment), and evaluation procedures.
A team is formed and a project management book is started with goals, due dates, and person responsible.
Initially, we had one person assigned to do the entire project but we discovered it became an impossible task as
Web authoring became more complex. We found it necessary to establish a team with members specializing in
graphics, Java Script, multimedia, human-computer interaction and instructional design in response to new
browser capabilities. The team concept also makes it easier to adhere to the project goals and time frame.
When only one person authored the pages, it was easy to perseverate and spend an inordinate amount of time
perfecting and exploring the potentials of design features. The design team can work together to solve
problems and make sure deadlines are met.
Design Planning
Once the parameters are defined, the next step is to determine the content to be included on the site. With the
inclusion of hyperlinks, the Web allows for the creation of a site with access to almost limitless information.
The design challenge is selecting relevant material. This selection process becomes easier once you identify
the audience and establish their information needs. While this process may initially seem time-consuming, it
facilitates the creation of a quality site.
Identify the audience. The project sponsors decides who they want to encourage to access their site. Our
department chairman chose to focus on prospective, new and continuing students for the Instructional Science
site. The purpose in identifying the audience is to allow the design team to concentrate on the needs of a
particular group. Without such a focus, the site development effort may wander and may lack coherence.
Determine the audience information needs. After the design team knows who the audience will be, the next
step is for them to determine the audience’s information needs. This involves four steps:
1. select a few members of each group within the target audience
2. interview them and conduct a task analysis
3. generate a work model
4. do a role delineation
One can get a general idea of the of the needs of a group by interviewing one or two individuals from the
group. We selected a perspective graduate student, two new students, and two continuing students to represent
the three groups in our targeted audience. Their responses were adequate for us to get an idea of what they
needed. This is where a team is beneficial--each member can interview a few people and the job is not too time
consuming.