Papers in PDF format

in quickly finding the information they want. Good design also adds credibility to the site as it reflects the
professionalism of the designers.
We reformatted much of the text contained in documents that couldn’t be reduced to one screen. Students had
complained they had been unable to easily locate a particular section in documents when they had to scroll. A
hyperlinked menu was provided at the beginning of those longer documents to aid in accessing the subsections.
Bold type, headings, subheadings and lists were used in documents to facilitate locating specific information
and topics. We created a standardized format for pages containing the same information, i.e., vitae, class
descriptions, labs, resources and syllabi, so that users could more easily locate the desired information. This
redundancy enabled users to anticipate where to look on the page. Subsections were divided by a colorful line
again for ease of quickly scrolling through material.
Usability Facilitation The graphical user interface (GUI) or home page is the most important page the design
team will create as it contains an overview or index of the materials at the site. It sets the tone for the site and
provides the means of navigating the hyperlinked documents. The index on the home page should not be too
shallow (containing too many topics) nor too deep (containing too many subtopics). A shallow index results in
a long list of materials and one that is too deep list only a few items and leads the user to yet more index pages.
The ideal page should be a well balanced hierarchical tree that affords quick access to information and helps
users understand how things are organized. The material on our Instructional Science home page was divided
into ten major categories of information each with three to four subcategories. Our goal was to allow the user
to access any information with three links.
The categories and icons were chosen after repeated user testing. We first attempted to create the categories of
information on our own by reviewing the documents on our site. Students expressed confusion in locating
information so we attempted further testing to refine the divisions. Students were asked to sort strips of paper
with the titles of separate documents into categories of their choosing. The categories were compared to the
ones we had developed and a revised page was designed. The students were then asked to predict where they
would find information given the ten categories on the new page. The success rate was lower than desired, so
subcategories were displayed to facilitate locating data. The revised page containing the categories and
subcategories was then retested resulting in a much higher success rate.
Once the layout of the home page was resolved, the next step was selecting icons for the categories. One user
test involved students matching icons to the categories they thought they represented. Another test had the
icon and the student was asked to state a category it suggested. After going through numerous icons and
revision, the final selections were incorporated into the design of our home page.
Our current home page has a brief graphical menu for browsing and a separate comprehensive listing of all the
documents organized by categories for more direct access to information. The background pattern was selected
for simplicity, aesthetic appeal and to serve as a signature to let the viewers know when they were accessing
materials on our server and when they had linked to another site.
Additionally, and of equal importance, are usability factors of ease and speed of use. Studies on user response
to computing system delays suggest that people are unwilling to waiting longer than about 20 seconds. While
large image maps are dramatic, they normally take longer to load, frequently far exceeding the 20 second
ceiling of viewer tolerance. We have chosen to minimize the number of graphics we use until modem speeds
dramatically increase.
Management Planning
It is important to establish procedures for managing a Web site from its inception. How to organize materials
on the server, how to keep the links updated and when to revise the site need to be clarified. Before any work
can begin the designer needs to establish the document organization structure for materials that will be placed
on the server. He needs to ensure that this structure has logical breadth (top level directories) and depth
(embedded subdirectories) before any documents are authored because all links will depend on this
directory/subdirectory arrangement. All names should be simple and in lower case. If a user is trying to access
a particular document by keying in its URL, the directory and document names should be easy and short. We
had not anticipated the ramification of naming directories and deeply embedding documents. Trying to correct
many of our early errors has become an extremely time-intensive job. We have had to make several revisions
to all our documents due to poorly designed directory structure, the use of upper and lower case names and a