Martin, Ian; Kear, Karen; Simpkins, Neil and Busvine, John
(2013).
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Abstract
This study of a website development project for a university athletic club illustrates how negotiations between designers and users play a fundamental role in defining website usability. Whilst usability can be ‘objectively’ measured using formal scales (number of clicks required, user effort or error rate to achieve an aim etc.), it may also be subjectively defined as the extent to which a website serves its intended audience. Usability engineering is therefore a social process involving interactions between users and designers that determine what is appropriate for a given context. Our case demonstrates the value of a ‘heterogeneous’ approach to website usability that involves engineering this context by negotiating the social alongside the technical. A strong stepwise website methodology that promotes early and continual user engagement – including sign-off of staged prototypes – is seen to be an important facilitating structure that carries these social negotiations forward through the web usability engineering lifecycle to successful project conclusion.
| Item Type: | Book Chapter |
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| Copyright Holders: | 2013 IGI Global |
| Keywords: | usability; case study; web development; user-centred design |
| Academic Unit/Department: | Mathematics, Computing and Technology > Communication and Systems Mathematics, Computing and Technology |
| Interdisciplinary Research Centre: | Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET) |
| Item ID: | 35368 |
| Depositing User: | Karen Kear |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Nov 2012 10:07 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Dec 2012 09:54 |
| URI: | http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/35368 |
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