ASSIGNMENT
Your organization has decided that it wants to have a more meaningful and informative
public presence on the World Wide Web. One of the features of this presence will be a
portion of the website featuring the key personnel of the organization—who they are,
their backgrounds, their responsibilities, and so on. This part of the site should be easily
updated as changes in key personnel occur. Initially, the site will be designed and tested
internally. When internal users are satisfied with the site and trained in updating their
own information, the site will be made public. In addition to determining what the
content should be and how it should be represented publicly, there are the additional
challenges of designing a back-end system (e.g., a database), a user-interface to update
that database, and some means to monitor the content and use of the system to ensure
that organizational goals and expectations are met.
TASK
You have been assigned the task of designing the personnel portion of an organizational
website and portal. You have decided to begin by creating your own e-portfolio to see
what you might include and how a user might interact with what you create.
1. Create a prototype of your e-portfolio; in doing so, indicate who you believe the intended users of the system will be and how they are likely to want to interact with your e-portfolio; identify all relevant assumptions you have with regard to the design.
2. Critique your prototype in terms of the ten design principles indicated in this chapter.
3. Have a colleague or peer also critique your prototype and provide specific feedback on the content, interface, navigation, and other elements of the e-portfolio.
4. Compare your own critique with that of your colleague; document differences, especially those pertaining to unexpected use, ambiguities, and unclear navigation
