FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS

FUNDAMENTAL OF ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT CSC118

ASSIGNMENT 1 THE EFFICIENCY CRITERIA OF THE WEBSITE

PREPARED BY: DZUL FAZWAN BIN OTHMAN (2010282318) AMIN AZIZI BIN MUHAMAD (2010624512) AMIRUL THAQIF BIN LATIMAN (2010231222)

(CSD1CA)
LECTURERS NAME: ZARINA BINTI ZAINUL RASHID

CONTENTS
1. Introduction 2. Website evaluation guidelines 3. Website efficiency criteria 3.1. User friendliness 3.2. Usefulness 3.3. Suitability 3.4. Attractiveness 4. Recommendations and the reasons 5. References

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Almost all businesses are going online these days. The website will provide the information that promotes and sell their products and services to the customers. But most of the business owners completely ignore the importance efficiency criteria of the website. Getting a website is simple but still most of the website designers do not give any attention on how to provide a user friendly, useful, suitable and attractive web site to the customer. These criteria not only make the overall experience of customer happy but it would also help in increasing conversion rate and online revenues. It also brings more profit to the company.

2.0 WEB SITE EVALUATION GUIDELINES

CRITERIA Content EXPLANATION Content is the most important part of website. It should be descriptive and prioritized. It should also be formatted for the way visitors actually read on the web. Accessibility for people with disabilities is required by law on all websites. Basic accessibility can be built into the website during development so it takes less time to implement. Make sure your pages are easy to read. Some factors to consider increasing readability are font size and color, website background, white space and alignment of text. The hardest part of developing a website is navigation. User needs a consistent navigation and they need know when they click on a button what they will find on the page. Website needs to be on server so that user can view it on the web. A server is simply a powerful computer. To have the website hosted on a server, company needs to pay a fee. It is important to select a reputable hosting company that guarantees website will available on the web for at least 99.5% of the time. Submit the website to search engines and providing search engine information typically will not provide enough exposure to sell a product unless the company has a very specialized product or services. Users are used to scrolling down a page (vertically scrolling). But avoid horizontally scrolling because users are not comfort to scroll it. The website must have clearly objective so the user can know what the website purpose. Ensure that the website give clear direction to the user on the actions to take. These Calls-to-Action ("Buy Now", "Click Here") should be clearing, concise and be positioned so as to provide maximum impact and usage. All information on the website must be updated daily or weekly. So the user not feels bored about the content on the website. Try to create a sense of place where user can easily move around. The website must have similar look and feel on every page such as same font and heading styles and same elements like navigation and contact information. Ensure there are no points in the website where lose the interest of the user, or where you hand control of them to another site.

Accessibility

Readability

Navigation

Hosting

Marketing the website

Scrolling

Objectivity Layout and direction

Currency

Consistent

Drop-outs and Drop-offs

3.0 WEBSITE EFFICIENCY CRITERIA

3.1 User friendliness Definition: Application, equipment, facility, process, or system that is compatible with its intended user's ability to use it easily and successfully. Example: o Loading Time: Nobody would like to wait for website to get loaded. Many people are still using dialup connections for accessing the web. Hence website should have low loading time. An idle website should load in 8 seconds. You can reduce the loading time of website by avoiding excessive use of Flash, pop-ups and other unobtrusive elements. Also you can use image compressors to reduce the page size. o Proper navigation: Make sure that user can access the important pages of website easily. Make it easy for users to find information they are looking for. Try to provide shortest and simplest path to user to complete a process. Replace all broken links on website with new URL. o User friendly URL: Make URL short so that it would be easy to remember or share. Try to include relevant keywords in link so that user can get the idea of the content on the page by seeing its URL. o Relevant Titles and Headlines: Use relevant titles and headlines for each page of website so that user could feel that he is on the right page. Start the headlines with keywords which can grab user attention and help user to find information quickly and easily.

3.2 Usefulness Definition: The content of website must give benefits to user. The website also must have easier way for user to get the product or services. Example: o Useful product and services: Make sure the products and services are useful for the user. Most users only buy a thing that useful for them. o Payment method: Make sure the website is provided payment method that easier to the user to buy a product and service. The business owners can use online payment such as credit card, credit transfer from bank account or others. The business owners also can provide offline payment such as post money.

3.4 Suitability Definition: The website must be suitable to open and read by any aged of user around the world. Example: o Browser Compatibility: The website should be compatible with all the major browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and others. Most of the time a website which looks good in one browser doesnt looks well in another. Make the website compatible for all browsers so that you do not lose any users. o Proper Color Combination and Font Size: Take care of aesthetics while designing website. The website should be pleasing for user eyes. Avoid excessive use of bright colors or small font size which makes website very hard to read.

3.5 Attractiveness Definition: To attract user to open the website. Example: o Allure with graphics or photos: Try to use images and graphics in the website. The user might not be that free to read the content but if you can attract them by images then you can convey your important message clearly. This can capture user attention and let them recall your site to visit again and again. o Use graphical signpost: Make website content more attractive with signposts. Use bullets and numbering to make content more clearly. The user might not read every sentence of content but can read the bulleted points easily. User can easily absorb bullet information where they do not need to concentrate on the content. o Flash bash: Flash is the most ever-present graphic tool. It should be used to enhance the images and text in the website. Try to be meager while using flash and other animation tools. o Be simple but avoid being too bland: Numerous sites are uploaded everyday. You must stand out in order to be noticed in this astounding web fraternity. Be creative and easily accessible. Use graphics that reflects your purpose and offerings. This will help you become more desirable and attractive to user.

4.0 RECOMMENDATION AND THE REASONS

Avoid over makeup: Over makeup can confuse the user about the content of website. Over makeup also can slowdown the time to load the website. Comment box: Allowed user to give feedback about the website. So the consultant can improve and upgrade the website. Put the company information: This can make the customer trusted to all information given in the website. The customer also can contact the company easily if have a problem about the products or services. Build an interesting website: The website can be interesting by use some cool element such as music, images, video and others. But not use the elements too much because its will slowdown website loading time. This can make the user feel happy to open the website and this also can make the user want to share the website to others. Promotes the website in social networking website: Company can promote this website in social networking website such as Facebook, Myspace and others. This can increases user that use the website because many users have an account in social networking website. Put a branding such as company identity logo: This can easier the user to memorize the website. It also can make the user trust the website. Avoid horizontal scrolling: Horizontal scrolling makes the user hard to read the content on the website. Furthermore, website looks ugly with horizontal scrolling.

5.0 REFERENCES
E2 Solutions, web designing article, retrieved on 31 July 2010, http://www.e2solutions.net/articles/attractive-web-designing.html Quality Web Solutions, how to make a website attractive and user friendly, retrieved on 31 July 2010, http://www.quality-web-solutions.com/blog/how-tomake-a-website-attractive-and-user-friendly/ Pingable, tips to make your website user friendly, retrieved on 1 August 2010, http://www.pingable.org/tips-to-make-your-website-user-friendly/ Business Dictionary, user friendly, retrieved on 1 August 2010, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/user-friendly.html Custom Web Help, non technical website guidelines, retrieved on 2 August 2010, http://www.customwebhelp.com/non-technical-website-guidelines.shtml Cornell University Library, five criteria for evaluating web pages, retrieved on 2 August 2010, http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html Minuco, website & design evaluation, retrieve on 3 August 2010, http://www.minuco.com/evaluation.aspx LaGuardia Center for Teaching and Learning, web design criteria, retrieved on 3 August 2010, http://faculty.lagcc.cuny.edu/ctl