The teachers college website is supposed to provide teachers in the Columbian college with information on programs and policies of the college. The website is accessible through a unified resource locator (URL) either through the internet or through intranet. The website has clear navigation links, which are placed at the top, left, and right sides of the home page. Dead links are not found on the website, which ensures users always end up in the right page after clicking on a link.
The use of graphics on the website is done with consideration to the information portrayed and communicated by the pages. The logo is a picture of the human resource office in Columbia University that would interest anyone visiting the website on human resource issues. The website has used icons to improve users’ comprehension of information that is being relayed. Some of the icons used are a phone to represent the directory and a magnification glass to represent a search link. The website has used universally accepted icons that have the same functionalities in different websites. The universality makes sure that once a user visits the website and sees the icon they will have an idea of what is happening or where the icon will lead them (Thomas, 2002).
The website has maintained uniformity in color blend along all the pages. The home page has used blue color to show the navigation links on the sidebars. The brightness of the blue color makes the website readable to people with sight problems. The color is attractive which makes sure that people cannot overlook the information on the page. Color has been applied to notify users of the current link that they are hovering on. The links changes from blue to white where the change of color will eradicate situations where users click on the wrong link or cannot tell of their current location on the links.
The website has included a search field and button. The search is supposed to help users in tracing important information. The search is active and displays correct information in the form of a link. The search process takes minimal time before displaying results, which improves the reliability of the website in delivering timely results.
The use of simple grammar on the pages improves the ability of users to grasp details on the site. The designers have used times new roman text with size 14 pixels on most of the pages. The font size is easy to read without putting a strain on the eyes of visually impaired users. The spacing of two pixels among words is evident on the whole website. The spacing eliminates mistakes where some users may read two words as one, therefore distorting the message of the designers.
The test of the website on browser compatibility was carried using Mozilla Firefox, Google chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari browser. The website displayed all the information in a correct way in the individual browsers. The perfect display meant that the website had observed compatibility issues by using CSS and JavaScript that is compatible to all browsers (Jansen, 2009).
The website testing was done on portable devices like mobile smart phones and I Pad. The website showed poor visibility in internet enabled mobile phones. The website information is scattered on the pages whenever a mobile phone is used which made it hard for users to read. To improve on compatibility on mobile devices the website requires use of mobile devices compatible CSS and JavaScript (Sostre, 2007).
Testing was carried on the speed of the website whenever users clicked on any of the links. The website took 2 to 3 seconds to respond to a click on a link, which was good time. The response time increased whenever the website was accessed on devices with slow internet connection. To improve on speed unnecessary graphic pictures should be removed while encouraging use of JavaScript instead of flash movies.
The website arrangement and color mixture makes it attractive to all users. Users of the website do not have difficulties in tracing information. The details on the website are relevant to the need of workers regarding their working conditions and policies. The readability and accessibility of the pages makes the website usable.
References
Jansen, B. (2009). Understanding user-Web interactions via Web analytics. San Rafael, Calif: Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
Sostre, P. (2007). Web analytics for dummies. Hoboken, N.J. Chichester: Wiley John Wiley distributor.
Thomas, M. (2002).How to conduct a Web site competitive analysis. IBM. Retrieved from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/us-analysis.html .
