Unit VII Case Study

     Complete the case study      and ensure your paper must be at least two pages in length, not counting      the title and reference pages. Cite any direct quotes or paraphrases from      the article, and include any sources used in your critique on the references      page using APA Style.

Instructions

Jean and his small team of developers finished creating the website for a new online business called I8IT, which sells unusual artistic and sculptural food items. I8IT’s products are unique and unconventional, and its owners asked the web team to design a very visual, unusual, ultra-modern site to match the business's personality.

Jean’s team proposed design ideas that the customer loved: graphical icons for all of the navigation links and buttons, visual images in place of descriptions, minimal text, and clever and unusual spellings and abbreviations for the text that appears. The completed site was unique and eccentric, and Jean's team and I8IT’s owners were pleased.

The business’s desired launch date was very close, so there was little time for testing the site. Jean asked all of the members of the development team and the I8IT owners to join him in spending half a day browsing and using the site to check for errors in design or functionality. Some invited their spouses or close friends to participate in the testing. Although the testing elicited a few questions, Jean and his team were easily able to answer them.

Shortly after the site and marketing were launched, I8IT noticed that they had received almost no orders, but they had received a great number of complaints and puzzled inquiries through the site’s feedback. Some site visitors said they could not find their way around the site because they did not understand the navigational icons. Others were confused by the clever shorthand text descriptions. Some wondered whether the products were food, toys, or art. Several mentioned that when they tried to purchase items, they had trouble backing out of the shopping cart to do more shopping and eventually gave up.

• I8IT’s owners were no longer pleased. Although they liked the design, they did not understand why site visitors had such trouble with the site when the owners themselves thought it worked just fine. In any case, they held Jean and his development team responsible for the site's poor usability because, as they said, Jean was the web professional—he should know what works and what does not. They insisted he redesign the site for free.

Provide responses to the questions below.

With this site’s design, what mistakes did Jean and his team make in relation to site usability? Which site design elements should be changed?

Explain what particular accessibility challenges this site’s design posed for users with disabilities or special accessibility software?

What mistakes did Jean make in his usability testing process? How should have the steps and participants been different?