ok questionnaire out the way and posted to webct, got few responses and more on the way.
Having a hard time finding solo designers on the gold coast (been at it all day, even went through yellow pages and yellowonline), as I want to research my local competition. Ended up having to do a larger area search and came up with:
1. http://www.hardweb.com.au/ - a local, Gold Coast designer.
2. http://www.art-effect.com.au/ - almost local, at Burringbar
3. for this one I did a search for the top web designers in the world and came across alist at Andy Denton site (http://www.andydenton.com/2006/11/05/the-top-55-web-designers-in-the-world/) and after going through the list (they all freelancers or small business) looking for a site design I like or can aspire to, I decide upon http://www.emotionslive.co.uk/
now I just have to analyse them..................later.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
from assignment 2 research
I finally finished my questionnaire and posted it for peer feedback in webct, I put the following in assignment 2 about the questions asked and why:
1.What the name of your business? This is a social question.
2.What is the service your business provides? To help define how different sectors of business may answer the questions or how expectations of websites may vary across industry.
3.Do you currently have a business website? To define their status at the moment in relation to the following questions.
4.Do you have a website for any other reason? To find out if they have other business interests or personal interests on the internet as this may affect the answers they provide.
5.What do you think a website would or does achieve for your business? People have different expectations, some may believe the internet in capable of more (or less) than possible for a business. For a business with a site already their answer could show if some of the sites on the web are not achieving what they could for business.
6.Which of the following services would you be prepared to pay a web design company for? (Website creation, Regular updates to optimize search engine ranking, Updating business information, for example monthly specials, logos, graphics, Advertising your business through banner advertising, Graphic design services, Other (please specify))? To ascertain what service people are in the market for, which are of the most interest to those who do or do not already have a site or a site that is or is not achieving for their business.
7.Would you prefer to update your website yourself or have a business provide that service for you? Again to ascertain the market preference
8.How much would you expect to pay for a five page website? An open question to ascertain if there are any general misconception about web page pricing.
9.How much would you expect to pay for advertising on the Internet? An open question to ascertain if there are any general misconception about web page pricing.
10.What would you look for in a web design company if you were going to have a web site created for your business? To get a general idea of what is expected from a web design business.
11.Any additional comments? Place here for respondant to place any information they feel appropriate.
I had originally planned to ask a lot of usability questions like “how do you rate yourself as an internet user”? But this questionnaire is aimed at customers for a web design company and as such is not about usability, yet, but to analyse what the potential customers require and expect from a web designer as a business provider, and to see what services they are in the market for and how much they expect to pay, for example if plumbers, in general, only expect to pay $500 for a website they would not be a viable market to target en masse, however, if photographers are prepared to pay a few thousand for a site then it would make more sense to target them. If plumbers are prepared to pay more for internet advertising then the banner ad service could be aimed at them.
I see the above questionnaire as stage 1, next would be to research the business groups the web design company plans to target and ask them more details of what they expect from a web design company and so on and to look at usability issues in their sites context.
Usability, in general has been well researched from people like Steve Krug (Krug,2006) to Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen, 2007), there is a lot of general information available to be applied to the design process and usability can be tested on websites that have been created. In this stage of the development the web design business has no web site to test so only a general usability knowledge can be applied until the site is created and site specific usability issues arise.
Nielsen, J. (2007) Current Issues in Web Usability,
Retrieved from: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
March 16, 2007.
Krug, S. (2006) Don’t Make Me Think, A common sense approach to Web Usability, Second Edition, New Riders Publishing, Berkeley, Californis USA.
1.What the name of your business? This is a social question.
2.What is the service your business provides? To help define how different sectors of business may answer the questions or how expectations of websites may vary across industry.
3.Do you currently have a business website? To define their status at the moment in relation to the following questions.
4.Do you have a website for any other reason? To find out if they have other business interests or personal interests on the internet as this may affect the answers they provide.
5.What do you think a website would or does achieve for your business? People have different expectations, some may believe the internet in capable of more (or less) than possible for a business. For a business with a site already their answer could show if some of the sites on the web are not achieving what they could for business.
6.Which of the following services would you be prepared to pay a web design company for? (Website creation, Regular updates to optimize search engine ranking, Updating business information, for example monthly specials, logos, graphics, Advertising your business through banner advertising, Graphic design services, Other (please specify))? To ascertain what service people are in the market for, which are of the most interest to those who do or do not already have a site or a site that is or is not achieving for their business.
7.Would you prefer to update your website yourself or have a business provide that service for you? Again to ascertain the market preference
8.How much would you expect to pay for a five page website? An open question to ascertain if there are any general misconception about web page pricing.
9.How much would you expect to pay for advertising on the Internet? An open question to ascertain if there are any general misconception about web page pricing.
10.What would you look for in a web design company if you were going to have a web site created for your business? To get a general idea of what is expected from a web design business.
11.Any additional comments? Place here for respondant to place any information they feel appropriate.
I had originally planned to ask a lot of usability questions like “how do you rate yourself as an internet user”? But this questionnaire is aimed at customers for a web design company and as such is not about usability, yet, but to analyse what the potential customers require and expect from a web designer as a business provider, and to see what services they are in the market for and how much they expect to pay, for example if plumbers, in general, only expect to pay $500 for a website they would not be a viable market to target en masse, however, if photographers are prepared to pay a few thousand for a site then it would make more sense to target them. If plumbers are prepared to pay more for internet advertising then the banner ad service could be aimed at them.
I see the above questionnaire as stage 1, next would be to research the business groups the web design company plans to target and ask them more details of what they expect from a web design company and so on and to look at usability issues in their sites context.
Usability, in general has been well researched from people like Steve Krug (Krug,2006) to Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen, 2007), there is a lot of general information available to be applied to the design process and usability can be tested on websites that have been created. In this stage of the development the web design business has no web site to test so only a general usability knowledge can be applied until the site is created and site specific usability issues arise.
Nielsen, J. (2007) Current Issues in Web Usability,
Retrieved from: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
March 16, 2007.
Krug, S. (2006) Don’t Make Me Think, A common sense approach to Web Usability, Second Edition, New Riders Publishing, Berkeley, Californis USA.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Market Research
found the following advice at http://www.inc.com/articles/2000/03/19094.html
"Determine Your Market
-Three key questions to answer when starting a company are:
1.Who, if anyone, has a real need for the thing I propose to sell, and how many of those potential customers are there?
2.How much, if anything, are they spending to address that need today?
3.Does my product meet that need in a manner that either saves or makes them substantial amounts of money?"(Mann, D. 2000)
my answers to above:
1. Lots of business, individuals, charities, government agencies etc.. have web sites. In fact anyone with a need or want to promote, sell, publish, display and so on.. information online. Some may already have sites that need updated and revamped others may need their first site or different site for a different aspect of their business, for example I was asked to update my sons school P&C website which is separate from the schools site. The actual market is quite huge, if you however decided to just make websites for small business in your city (there is potential here to nationalise and even go global with your market) one would narrow their markets range.
2. Some don't spend a cent on design, for example the school P&C site is compiled by donations of time from parents. Others spend thousands. It is a question of getting what you pay for, usually. An electrician I know was quoted a thousand a year to have a web site. Some sites are large and complicated, others small. Some designers charge by the hour others for the site first and then an ongoing fee to maintain the site.
3. My product (web design) would solve this need (for a website) for smaller style web sites within my own area. I would also create charity style (like school P&C) for free in order to gain recognition and work to display in my own site. My product price would be competitive and similar to the prices charged in my area.
Having read Mann's article I have decided to adapt questionnaire to help me know my customers (potential market) more and ask some questions along the lines of;
"if you were searching for a wed design company, what would you be looking for"
"how much do you think a web site is worth "
"what do you think a web site would do for your business/product" etc...
found the following advice at http://www.inc.com/articles/2000/03/19094.html
"Determine Your Market
-Three key questions to answer when starting a company are:
1.Who, if anyone, has a real need for the thing I propose to sell, and how many of those potential customers are there?
2.How much, if anything, are they spending to address that need today?
3.Does my product meet that need in a manner that either saves or makes them substantial amounts of money?"(Mann, D. 2000)
my answers to above:
1. Lots of business, individuals, charities, government agencies etc.. have web sites. In fact anyone with a need or want to promote, sell, publish, display and so on.. information online. Some may already have sites that need updated and revamped others may need their first site or different site for a different aspect of their business, for example I was asked to update my sons school P&C website which is separate from the schools site. The actual market is quite huge, if you however decided to just make websites for small business in your city (there is potential here to nationalise and even go global with your market) one would narrow their markets range.
2. Some don't spend a cent on design, for example the school P&C site is compiled by donations of time from parents. Others spend thousands. It is a question of getting what you pay for, usually. An electrician I know was quoted a thousand a year to have a web site. Some sites are large and complicated, others small. Some designers charge by the hour others for the site first and then an ongoing fee to maintain the site.
3. My product (web design) would solve this need (for a website) for smaller style web sites within my own area. I would also create charity style (like school P&C) for free in order to gain recognition and work to display in my own site. My product price would be competitive and similar to the prices charged in my area.
Having read Mann's article I have decided to adapt questionnaire to help me know my customers (potential market) more and ask some questions along the lines of;
"if you were searching for a wed design company, what would you be looking for"
"how much do you think a web site is worth "
"what do you think a web site would do for your business/product" etc...
Questionnaire resources
I designed my questionnaire and decided to serve it on only 5 people based on research sources mentioned in previous post and the following:
I posted the following in webct discussions:
Message no. 310
Author: Jan Hobson
Date: Monday, March 5, 2007 8:23pm
Anyone thought about their questionnaire yet? I guess the idea is to ask some general questions relating to internet usability rather than ones specific to the site we are conducting market research for? Do these questions seem okay or is the answer already obvious? are some too technical?
1.If a web page is taking too long to load (be viewable) can you be bothered waiting?
2.What internet content, if any would you wait more than a few minutes for to load?
3.Do you know how to make the text size larger on web pages in your browsers menu? (yes or no)
4.Do you know what screen resolution you use while browsing the internet? (yes or no)
and received these responses....so far:
I designed my questionnaire and decided to serve it on only 5 people based on research sources mentioned in previous post and the following:
I posted the following in webct discussions:
Message no. 310
Author: Jan Hobson
Date: Monday, March 5, 2007 8:23pm
Anyone thought about their questionnaire yet? I guess the idea is to ask some general questions relating to internet usability rather than ones specific to the site we are conducting market research for? Do these questions seem okay or is the answer already obvious? are some too technical?
1.If a web page is taking too long to load (be viewable) can you be bothered waiting?
2.What internet content, if any would you wait more than a few minutes for to load?
3.Do you know how to make the text size larger on web pages in your browsers menu? (yes or no)
4.Do you know what screen resolution you use while browsing the internet? (yes or no)
and received these responses....so far:
I read Nielsen's usability testing article, which recommends only asking the questions of five people: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
And read this article: http://www.ahref.com/guides/design/199806/0615jef5.html which says ask a few general questions like their name and internet proficiency and to explain to participants that there is no right and wrong answers etc..
will make next post my completed questionnaire example
Monday, March 5, 2007
Questionnaires
researched this topic at http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0601/education/187.html and compared some of their theory to the assignment example by Naomi Hama in webct 'hall of fame' usability section.
The website recommends the following:
for wording questions:
-sentences be short and simple and ask for only one piece of information at a time
-avoid negatives and ask precise questions
-Ensure those you ask have the necessary knowledge
-ask for the exact level of detail required
-Minimise bias and be careful of sensitive issues
Format of responses can be either open or closed or a combination of both depending on the with 'ranking' being the less used as reponses are hard to analyse.
Length of questionnaire short ones tend to have a better response rate.
The order of questions is also important:
Go from general to particular.
Go from easy to difficult.
Go from factual to abstract.
Start with closed format questions.
Start with questions relevant to the main subject.
Do not start with demographic and personal questions
Also recommended to mix negatives and positives, use a variety of question formats, filter questions may be used and questionnaire should have cover letter or at least an introduction and a thankyou at end.
Naomi Hama's questionnaire begins with and ends with simple general questions
1. What is your occupation?
2. How old are you?
3. How often do you use the Internet?
here I think it would be easy to receive responses like, "not much", "all the time", "when mum lets me" and so on it seems a question open to ambiguous answers.
4. What web sites do you use the most? (Please include the URL if you can.)
here it appears Naomi is looking for specific websites, but many people may just answer with; "the bank", "shopping", "the weather" and so on. A sensitive issue here may be porno sites I wonder how many would own up to vising them?
5. What is your level of Internet know how? (How much do you think you know about the Internet?)
(Minimum) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (Maximum)
I can think of someone I know giving themselves an 8 here when all of the internet they explore is yahoo
6. What do you like the most about the Internet?
7. What do you dislike the most about the Internet?
8. Do you have a computer at home?
9. What operation system do you use? (e.g. Mac OS/Windows)
10. Do you have stereo with your computer?
this question seems strange, should it say "do you have sound or speakers" and "do you ever turn them on while on the internet"?
11. What screen pixel do you use? (e.g. 640 x 480, 800 x 600)
many people I know wouldn't know what screen resolution is Naomi found the same thing with only 3 of the 11 questioned able to answer, perhaps this is a filtering question?
12. Which browser do you use? (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape.)
I don't mean to pick on her questionnaire it just gave me an opportunity to compare Naomi's questions with the websites recommendations. A questionnaire for internet students could contain more technical questions than one for people with little internet experience, or you could pose a questionnaire testing just how much user do know etc..
next job is to create my own questionnaire
researched this topic at http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0601/education/187.html and compared some of their theory to the assignment example by Naomi Hama in webct 'hall of fame' usability section.
The website recommends the following:
for wording questions:
-sentences be short and simple and ask for only one piece of information at a time
-avoid negatives and ask precise questions
-Ensure those you ask have the necessary knowledge
-ask for the exact level of detail required
-Minimise bias and be careful of sensitive issues
Format of responses can be either open or closed or a combination of both depending on the with 'ranking' being the less used as reponses are hard to analyse.
Length of questionnaire short ones tend to have a better response rate.
The order of questions is also important:
Go from general to particular.
Go from easy to difficult.
Go from factual to abstract.
Start with closed format questions.
Start with questions relevant to the main subject.
Do not start with demographic and personal questions
Also recommended to mix negatives and positives, use a variety of question formats, filter questions may be used and questionnaire should have cover letter or at least an introduction and a thankyou at end.
Naomi Hama's questionnaire begins with and ends with simple general questions
1. What is your occupation?
2. How old are you?
3. How often do you use the Internet?
here I think it would be easy to receive responses like, "not much", "all the time", "when mum lets me" and so on it seems a question open to ambiguous answers.
4. What web sites do you use the most? (Please include the URL if you can.)
here it appears Naomi is looking for specific websites, but many people may just answer with; "the bank", "shopping", "the weather" and so on. A sensitive issue here may be porno sites I wonder how many would own up to vising them?
5. What is your level of Internet know how? (How much do you think you know about the Internet?)
(Minimum) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (Maximum)
I can think of someone I know giving themselves an 8 here when all of the internet they explore is yahoo
6. What do you like the most about the Internet?
7. What do you dislike the most about the Internet?
8. Do you have a computer at home?
9. What operation system do you use? (e.g. Mac OS/Windows)
10. Do you have stereo with your computer?
this question seems strange, should it say "do you have sound or speakers" and "do you ever turn them on while on the internet"?
11. What screen pixel do you use? (e.g. 640 x 480, 800 x 600)
many people I know wouldn't know what screen resolution is Naomi found the same thing with only 3 of the 11 questioned able to answer, perhaps this is a filtering question?
12. Which browser do you use? (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape.)
I don't mean to pick on her questionnaire it just gave me an opportunity to compare Naomi's questions with the websites recommendations. A questionnaire for internet students could contain more technical questions than one for people with little internet experience, or you could pose a questionnaire testing just how much user do know etc..
next job is to create my own questionnaire
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Been looking around http://www.hardweb.com.au/index.html and wondering why a site with code that doesn't validate and work perfectly across browsers is on the first page of google results.
A few usability issues I noted (ones I am aware of so far..):
1. text size cant be changed in IE but can in FF (alters alignment quite badly though)
2. few minor image alignment issues between FF & IE
2. some things look like links but are not (example, in 'web information section' on right side of screen the text best reasons and new clients is bold but link is at end of paragraphs
3. two search bars, powered by picosearch, one doesn't work, error message says 'being worked on' use other search bar.
4. What's the flower pot for?
5. why have all the sites designed placed under main content instead of in web design navigational link? the web design link takes you to page 'about web design'
6. weird right arrows, and not next to the read more here text.
7. loads fast- images very small some been reduced a bit too much I think
8. muddled links at the bottom of home page, at first glance they look like part of the 'sites designed' section but not, here you notice a newsletter can be viewed, css validator link, computer training course, audio welcome (seems pointless) and so on
Can't wait to see how the 'test subject' find this page compared to my critiques, especially if I ask them to try to find the newsletter! (without using the search bar)
A few usability issues I noted (ones I am aware of so far..):
1. text size cant be changed in IE but can in FF (alters alignment quite badly though)
2. few minor image alignment issues between FF & IE
2. some things look like links but are not (example, in 'web information section' on right side of screen the text best reasons and new clients is bold but link is at end of paragraphs
3. two search bars, powered by picosearch, one doesn't work, error message says 'being worked on' use other search bar.
4. What's the flower pot for?
5. why have all the sites designed placed under main content instead of in web design navigational link? the web design link takes you to page 'about web design'
6. weird right arrows, and not next to the read more here text.
7. loads fast- images very small some been reduced a bit too much I think
8. muddled links at the bottom of home page, at first glance they look like part of the 'sites designed' section but not, here you notice a newsletter can be viewed, css validator link, computer training course, audio welcome (seems pointless) and so on
Can't wait to see how the 'test subject' find this page compared to my critiques, especially if I ask them to try to find the newsletter! (without using the search bar)
Decided one day I will need my own design site so I shall start work on its development in this unit. Googled 'web design Gold Coast" - to focus on where I live. First result (not sponsored) was http://www.redfoxwebdesign.com.au/ then http://web-design-gold-coast.surfpacific.com.au/ then http://www.webdesignmagic.com.au/ (who have a position vacant for a designer).
I, however shall focus on sites that appear to have a solo designer as that is what I intend to do.
This site appears like just one guy, http://www.hardweb.com.au/ but I will also need to research what others are doing and also in other areas of Australia, just to see whats going on out there etc...
keep searching for now.
I, however shall focus on sites that appear to have a solo designer as that is what I intend to do.
This site appears like just one guy, http://www.hardweb.com.au/ but I will also need to research what others are doing and also in other areas of Australia, just to see whats going on out there etc...
keep searching for now.
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