Website Design for Interactive Environment - Assignment Example

Report on Labs XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX User Personae User-centered design, personas are imagined characters created to represent types of users with certain skills and located in different demographic regions. They capture the attitude and general demeanor of these personalities (Tamara & Pruitt, pp. 77-81). Jane is a kindergarten teacher, a daycare center, looks after children of the age between 3years and 9 years. This user is college educated and in her mid 20s. User one is a fast learner and has excellent communication skills. She uses a computer, but she is a teacher by trade and not a technical or advanced computer user. She has a Pentium IV desktop computer, connected to the internet. To her a computer is just another tool for getting her administrative tasks done. User one manages her chores, register, lesson plan and other administration duties with her computer. User one monitors the children and has emergency phone numbers for pediatricians and hospitals for kids. She is internet savvy and uses it for three hours per day. She checks her mails and social networking websites every day. Jane has applied her own efforts in studying and getting used to computer use. Thomas is a young parent with three kids, two in lower primary and a teenage in high school. This user is married and works as a banker. He has had training on basic computer skills and could be rated as an advanced computer user. Social status is important to him and appreciates it in others. He does not mind the impersonality of doing things online and gets what he needs quickly and efficiently. He is looking for specific results and quantifiable service. Thomas is not concerned with social interaction and is willing to pay more to get a little extra, convenience and service. This user has a computer at home and in the office and uses it for complex typesetting and other applications. He has an internet connection that is given dedicated bandwidth. Computer skill Internet Knowledge Application / Program Use Social Interaction Comments Jane Good Basic Poor Excellent Average user Thomas Excellent Advanced Advanced Poor Skilled user Competition that currently exists Muscat Private Hospital Website As I browsed the Muscat Private Hospital website, I noticed the clear logo accompanied by name on the header part of the website. In addition, I liked the simple design where the webpage has been centered and it is designed with consistent colors. These colors give harmony and the required contrast to the website, highlighting the important information that needs to be seen by the user first. There are images, static and dynamic. The dynamic images, flashing, appear beside the logo and repeatedly play images of the different services offered by the hospital. These images compliment the text and reduce a lot of prose on the website. There are several menu items, content links, displaying a list of clickable hyperlinks to other website pages. They have been arranged in such a way to give easy navigation. There are three columns that have introductory text and links to more information. These sections give the user the opportunity to skim through the website content and choose information that interests them. There are a few negative aspects where the site lacks many of important things that the user may be looking for. For instance, the language, it provides one language which in my opinion not all of the people are familiar with the English language. The hospital is located in Sultanate of Oman and there is the likelihood that they would be accepting so many users from Arab countries. These users may be interested in knowing about the services that the hospital would provide them. There are no medical online services such as registration, booking appointments and a services price list. The facilities provided have not been included and the user browsing has no way to know the quality of the facilities. My conclusion is that the website needs more development in terms of the interface. The amount of prose can be greatly reduced in this website. http://www.muscatprivatehospital.com/ The Harley Street Clinic Website This website has a very impressive and eye catching flash movie at the top strip. In addition, it has a simple menu and an interface with the hospital name at the left top most location. It has been complemented by available contacts and this would provide a quick solution to a user with the need to contact the hospital staff directly. The main menu items are neatly tabbed just below the flashing image. This makes it hard to miss the links, additional links, to the web pages and just below the tabbed menu items there are more specific links. There are some social bookmarks at the bottom of the page that bring the aspect of social interaction. This in my opinion gives the hospital a social image and an aspect of online communication. The main interface looks very organized and easy to navigate and you can gather lots of information. You can also identify the services that are provided by the clinic in addition to the availability of content of site map. The website gives you more details on operations and the other medical services. The site also available in Arabic and this makes it more suitable for Arab users. There is a quick search field that provides the functional search where a user can directly look for the topic of interest. There are some aspects that may be negative, for example, the site doesnt provide an online registration and appointment booking. There are only reservations by phone, and also there is no information services pricing, place of residence and wards. In my view these function points are important in ensuring the usability of the website. In the end, I would say that the site is rich of important information and useful, in addition to the international medical group, and the medical devices which is considered high-quality. http://www.theharleystreetclinic.com The Bumrungrad International Hospital I came across a few things that interested me in this website. To begin with, the level of usability of this website is high and at a glance it provides a lot of useful information to the browser. The information on the site is very valuable and serves the purpose of the user and all that is needed from health information of this hospital. A browser will find additional links and profiles of experts and medical staff on a global level. This gives the assurance to the user browsing the site that health services provided are superior and personalized care to the patient is offered. What attracts the viewer while surfing the sites home page are those characteristics of data and important information, for example, the browser can take a comprehensive overview of the hospital and its location including the date of its inception. Also this site provides you the option to choose the doctor that you would like to meet from the list through online services. This site provides you with the function to make your reservations to visit the clinic you intend to, and you can also find out pricing and booking dates. . In addition to that, it provides you some hotels that are near the hospital with a map showing you the locations. The site contains a property for questions and discussions, as it enables you to communicate with the hospital staff. What I would say in the end about this site that it has been designed in a manner considering its users. http://www.Bumrungrad.com/thailandhospital Jelink Tours Ltd This website has the best designed interface and very high usability rating. It has been designed in such a way that it is providing detailed and very straight forward information to the website visitors. It has a very clear logo on the top most part of the website and contact information on the right side of the top strip. The Jelink Tours Ltd website has excellent graphics that clearly depict the company as a tour firm. Browsing through the homepage takes any typical user very little effort to find the desired information. This is because all vital and specific information has been squarely placed and given significance. For instance, all information on popular tours, special safaris and hot safaris has been captured in very visible columns. The website however has serious faults from the content links for the rest of the website pages. All the links are inactive and when you click on a link it does not take you to any specific page. Basically the website provides homepage information alone which is not sufficient to any user of the website. It has provided an interface to login and book an account which does not work. This is poor design and gives a false impression to the user. Jelink Tours Website has very little information and the languages link provided does not work. In my opinion this website needs a facelift to activate the links and most importantly add the desired functionality by the user. http://www.jelinktours.com/ Medical Clinic Centre Recommendation for the new website When planning and creating a website, the developer has the idea of reaching global audience through the internet (Horton 2005, p.43). The designer has to keep in mind the necessities of the visitors and the return on investment, profit, from a particular website. Disseminating information through electronic means is a dynamic activity and it changes with advancement in technology (Bringhurst 2005, pp. 5, 32 & 44). While many hospital websites make the grade when it comes to look and feel, the designer needs to focus on the visitors, reasons they view and what they are viewing in the site. The design for the childrens medical center will be provided in two languages (English and Arabic) and will contain extensive and useful information that meets the purpose of the user. This will be to accommodate other communities living in the region that the hospital is located. The design of the site also needs to be simple and straight forward containing all the important contents and online services. The online services will include booking appointments with doctors, patient registration, paying electronically and inquiries and medical consultation. These services will give easy access and a lot of the website usability (Shawn 2007, p. 88). They will reduce the number of inquiries and staff can concentrate on other duties. Interface of this website will be centered and have harmony in color. That means that the color scheme in all pages should be same, resembling Muscat Private Hospital website. The basic structure I will recommend is to have the Medical Clinic Name at the top strip and quick links on the left side of the main page. This will quickly identify the website and give a brief overview of the contents. For the navigation I will recommend a block design with pop up links. This will allow the content links to provide handy and easy access to as many pages as possible. The hospital name and contact information will be at the top most part of the website. This is to give a very clear label of the website and contacts of the staff. The Harley Street Clinic has such a design and makes it unmistakable with anything. I recommend flashing images that capture the various facilities and hospital grounds. This will give a very clear image of the status of the hospital and specific services offered. A search field at the top most part beside the quick links will serve the user who wants convenient information and quick skip to the preferred page. Social bookmarking with the most popular social interaction websites will be an added advantage. This will give the community a more personalized service and increase the number of hits to the website. I have observed that the newsletter service is missing in all the examined websites. This could help disseminate information to patients, for example, about vaccination or medical notes. The Medical Clinic Website should have a guestbook where users can sign up and leave comments. This feature has not been incorporated in any of the websites I have examined. A very important feature I will recommend is the hit counter. This counts or computes the number of unique visits to the website and helps in monitoring website traffic. This will allow the hospital management to know the numbers of people who are using their online resource and how helpful they are. References Bringhurst, R 2005, The Elements of typographic style applied to the web, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Bumrungrad International Hospital (2011) Health information sources [online].Bangkok: Bumrungrad International Hospital. Available at : http://www.bumrungrad.com/thailandhospital [Accessed 19 October 2011]. Horton, S 2005, Access by Design online, New Riders Press, California. The Harley Street Clinic(2011) Health information sources [online].London: The Harley Street Clinic. Available at : http://www.theharleystreetclinic.com/ [Accessed 19 October 2011]. Jelink Tours Ltd(2010) Tours and Travel sources[online].Kenya: Jelink Tours Ltd. Available at : http://www.bumrungrad.com/thailandhospital [Accessed 19 October 2011]. Shawn, L.H 2007, Integrating accessibility throughout design, Lawton Press, Madison. Tamara, A & Pruitt J 2005, The essential persona lifecycle, Morgan Kaufmann, Massachusetts. United Medical Muscat Private Hospital (2010) Health information sources [online].Sultanate of Oman: Muscat private Hospital. Available at : http://www.muscatprivatehospital.com/index.html [Accessed 19 October 2011]. Read More