1) Purpose: What is the purpose(s) of the site?

• Does the site have more than one purpose?
• What is primary, secondary, and tertiary purposes of site?
• How important is client image (does client have established image or do you need to create it)?
• What is site genre?
  • Personal E-Commerce (L.L. Bean) (Half.Com)
  • News Mosaic (cnn.com) (CBS Marketwatch)
  • Community Conference (beliefnet) (Greenpeace)
  • Self-Service Government (San Jose) (Michigan)
  • Nonprofit Network (VolunteerMatch) (Network for Good)
  • Company Value Site (Michelin) (BASF) (HP)
  • Educational Forum (Harvard) (US History)
  • Arts and Entertainment (Boston Pops) (moma) (Guggenheim)
  • Fun and Games (Box) (templar) (ldg)
  • Web Application (Monster)(firstib)
  • Intranet (SAP)

2) Audience: Who will be the users of the site?

• What will they expect and want?
• What do they want to do or find?
• What are the user demographics?
• Do they have special needs? See Week 15

3) Competition: Who is the competition?

• What are similar sites like or doing?
• Find 3-5 similar sites of competitors.
• Find 3-5 sites that have "look and feel" you believe will work.
• Have client(s) find 3-5 sites that have "look and feel" you believe will work.

4) Content: What will be the content?

• Who will be responsible for content?
• Who will be responsible for updates?
• How will it be found and managed?
• What research has been completed and still needs to be done?
• Will the content be static or dynamic?
• When and how will content be delivered?

5) What technologies will be used and server space?

• Static or dynamic
• Includes/templates/css
• Low bandwidth/High bandwidth/both
• Special Plug-ins
• Database/e-commerce/web application

6) Information Design: How will information be structured on the site and how will the user navigate it? Create a conceptual map (visio or other program or on paper) of the site. (Yale)

7) Mock-Ups: What are possible designs for the site? Create 2-3 possible themes (test site designs--front page and inner template).

8) Management: How will site and assets be managed and maintained?

• How will documents be stored?
• File and directory naming plan?
• What server space?
• Where will testing be done?
• Where will finished project be placed?
• Who will maintain site after launch?

9) What will be the schedule for completing project beyond the due date for stages?

1) How well did you meet preparation goals?

2) Design and Usability Notes

• Users
  • Think of user group(s)
  • See from user perspective
  • Follow user's eye
  • Build sustainability and scalability
• Design
  • Name categories in terms of usertasks
  • Keep elements consistent
  • Test in different conditions (browsers, OS)
  • Use prime landscape of page-"above the fold"
  • Use four or few colors
  • Be careful with colors-use muted, pastels, white space.
  • Use cross-linking (same thing in different places)
  • Think about file size (warn, thumbnails, . . .)
  • Think globally and locally
• Text:
• Chunk information
• Write for scanning
• Use sans-serif fonts
• Minimize font changes
• Make printer friendly pages
• Have good FAQS
• Images:
• Optimize images
• Use good quality and proper size
• Repeat images where possible
• Navigation
  • Use Top and Left of Screen for Navigation
  • Be redundant but not confusing
  • Provide supplemental navigation (site map, text links at bottom of page, search engine)
  • Make Links self-explanatory
• Avoids:
  • Avoid being cute (especially with naming and labeling)
  • Avoid Creating Orphaned Pages
  • Avoid Horizontal scroll
  • Avoid animation
  • Avoid broken links
  • Avoid being too "bleeding edge"
  • Avoid overly long and confusing urls
  • Avoid Frames

Usability Heuristics (Based on OCLCHeuristics that are based on Nielsen's 10 Heuristics)

Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on and where they are at, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, pages, or actions mean the same thing. Follow uniform and/or platform conventions.

Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.

Recognition rather than recall
Make objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators—unseen by the novice user—may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions. Give users alternative ways of doing things.

Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Affordances
Does the user understand what the text/graphic will do before they activate it?

Use chunking and Inverted Pyramid
Write material so that documents are short and focused. Do not force the user to access multiple documents to complete topic. Make text easy to scan and organize information as inverted pyramid with key points appearing before more specific detail. Encourage the user to delve as deeply as needed, but to stop whenever sufficient information has been received.

Don't lie to the user
Eliminate erroneous or misleading links. Do not refer to missing information.