Internet Exercises

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Chapter 3: Designing Usable Information

Internet Exercises

This activity contains 3 questions.

Visit the Web site of a software vendor of your choice, such as the Macromedia site, and go to the downloads page. Follow the instructions for downloading a software package (such as a plug-in), and then analyze the experience by answering the following questions:

Does the site use language that promotes usability? Is it clear and concise?
How is the content "chunked" or otherwise organized?
Are the instruction’s context sensitive for different audiences? In your estimation, who is the primary audience for these instructions?
Are there visual elements that help the user perform the task at hand?
Does the site provide the user with feedback, such as error messages?
Are there mechanisms in place for users to provide feedback to the site administrator? Are there other important points of contact?
What other usability-related mechanisms do you see in place? What usability mechanisms are missing? How might these present or missing mechanisms affect the user's experience?

Please provide evidence for your analysis, quoting directly from the instructions or describing the site carefully and clearly.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Donald A. Norman writes that one of the most important modes of learning is the experiential mode, which is the mode people use when they are playing computer games. They learn by doing, not by reading instructions (Things that Make Us Smart, Perseus Books, 1993).

So have some fun. Visit an entertainment site, such as the Merlin’s Quest game site at Shockwave.com, or the Urban Diary. Each of these sites has little in the way of text instructions; you must learn by doing. Answer the following questions for the site you choose:

Who is the primary audience for the site?
Is the document context sensitive for different levels of audience expertise? If so, how is it specifically written and designed to be context sensitive for a mixed audience?
How is the content organized? What clues help you identify the organization or structure of the site?
What visual elements help you perform your task?
Does the site provide feedback for the user (to measure progress, etc.)?
What other usability-related mechanisms are in place? How do they affect the user's experience of the site?
Would you consider this site to be a technical document? Why or why not?

Describe specific elements of the site to support your answers.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Revisit Internet Exercise 3 from Chapter 1: Using the set of instructions or the technical process description you choose from one of the Web sites below, write a few paragraphs evaluating the effectiveness of this piece of communication, this time focusing on the usability of the document. Using what you’ve learned from the textbook, focus your evaluation on the following: whether the document is context sensitive, how effectively information is chunked, how well the document is designed, and if the document uses appropriate grammar and style that enhance usability.

HowStuffWorks

DIY: The Do-It-Yourself Network

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

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