W5: Effective Web Instruction, Part III

The last two chapters of Frick and Boling's Effective Web Instruction are Chapter 5: Building and Web Prototype and Chapter 6: Assessing and maintaining the site.

Chapter 5 is split into four parts:

1. Issues Regarding Current Web Technologies
2. Further Limitations and Some Alternatives
3. Types of Web Solutions, Depending on What You Need For Instruction
4. Making Templates for Web Protypes.

My biggest criticism of this text is the obvious: It is so outdated! According to the footer, this text was last published on May 13, 2006, and 7 years is a long time to not update info on web technologies.

For example, it talks about students needing Netscape (is it even still in existence?), Internet Explorer (I know this is still around, but I don't know anyone who actually uses it), and AOL (did people still use AOL in 2006?). Today's browsers of choice are Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome.  It talks about students using Hotmail accounts (instead of Yahoo or gmail).

http://kitsindia.co.in/home.html

Important current teaching tools it doesn't mention: Dropbox (belongs where they discuss the limitations of sending documents to email), using wikis and blogs for students to collaborate, programs like Skype and Google chat (for free conferencing) or Adobe Breeze (costs money).

The main program for developing websites it talks about is Dreamweaver (which is what I use today), however, there are also a lot of programs out there for creating templates that are designed for creating interactive modules by people with less programming experience (like Adobe Captivate). These are WYSIWYG type programs that allow developers to add forms and interactivity in a way that most beginners can't do with programs like Dreamweaver.

Also, when discussing Flash in 2013, it's important to mention that flash isn't available on iPads (or other apple mobile devices), which would be a big reason to consider not using flash in development!

And that is the last thing I was going to mention: a chapter written in 2006 doesn't take into account mobile technology, specifically smart phones and tablets. Even the section on web templates talks about the familiar top nav bar and left nav bar popular on many sits, but those forms are actually not most conducive to designing sites that will be used on mobile technologies. This is something to consider if you are developing an instruction that will be accessed using mobile technologies.

(P.S. Frick mentions Ray Kurzweil, may I highly recommend the documentary on him Transcendent Man. It's on Netflix streaming.)

QUESTION: Can we use the same person to test the paper prototype and the web prototype?

The last chapter, Chapter 6, focuses on Assessing and Maintain the site. Reading this chapter reminds me of an old saying my dad always uses: "Measure twice. Cut once." Sure, most of the time he was literally talking about woodworking. However, I think this applies...

Frick and Boling say hey, if you think you are done testing, test one more time. And testing should include two parts: usability testing (measure 1 - testers running through the prototype) and a summative evaluation (measure 2), before going live (cut).

http://precisetestingsolution.com/betatesting.php

The main thing I learned in this chapter is that during the bug testing phases, it's best to break the team up into testers and fixers and only do one at a time. This actually makes a lot of sense, because I've been on plenty of group projects where we are all doing both. And a few times I've just told my team members after all the design was finished "just work through it and write down your problems and I'll fix them later." I was doing this to save time, because I didn't want people to get hung up trying to fix something when what we really needed to do was locate all of the problems first. Now I know it's a legitimate approach to bug testing. :)

I really like that in the checklist on page 108 that they mention the importance of the browser. When designing a web-based project, you have to check it on all browsers. I currently check all of mine on Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Explorer. If there is one it works best with and/or one it is NOT compatible with, I add that note in the beginning so that the user is aware from the beginning. Also, as I mentioned about the flash issue before, if your instruction has flash, you should let the user know that it isn't compatible with some devices.

The description of bug testing explained here is definitely is more detailed and defined than anything I've used before and am interested in giving some of these strategies a try with testing this project.

The final section, Conducting the analysis, really is like a bookend to the beginning of the textbook, showing that in the analysis phase, you really need to make sure that the final product aligns with your initial goals. For example, making sure the audience, the stakeholders, the learning objectives, etc are met. And that it is appropriate to be taught using computer technology (although really isn't it a little late to determine it's not? :) )

Finally, I liked the idea of conducting and analyzing interviews of users (which I've never done) because you can see not only did the technology work?, but did the learners really understand the point of the instruction? which I can embarrassingly admit I have not done in the past.