Madison Straatmann
My first evaluator is Madison Straatmann. Madison is an alumni of my orchestra program and was the kind of student to use resources such as a Website to make sure she has the most current information at all times. She has also been through my program start to finish so she understands the need and use of a website for an active program such as ours. Madison completed this evaluation on a Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows 7.
Susie Thierbach
Susie Thierbach is my co-teacher in the program. She started in this program 3 years ago, and before that point she also had two kids in the program (who are still in today). Her perspective is crucial as she sees our program both from the instructor point of view and as a parent. Susie completed this evaluation on an 11.6-inch HD display using Intel Celeron N3150 CPU.
Stacy Hymer
Stacy is the mother of one of my senior bassists in the Washington Orchestra program. Stacy is a good representative for this evaluation as she had to do more for her daughter in her younger years in the program since she was a bassist. Stacy always needed to know what was happening when, especially because she had to move the bass by car, rather than bus, which most other students had the luxury of. Her daughter is now a senior and drives, so Stacy, naturally, is not quite as involved in the happenings of the program since she does not have to do as much traveling. Stacy completed this evaluation using a Dell Latitude laptop, with Intel 1-7 2620M, 2.7gz, running Windows 7 Professional.
Design: All evaluators easily recognized the tie between the color scheme and why I chose to use it, which was one of my goals in terms of creating a connection to our district. Madison and Susie both felt that the idea behind the scheme was good, but felt that the background color (blue) was quite stark against the white paragraph background. All 3 evaluators felt that the navigation was easy to understand, and knew what they would be looking for before even visiting the site. However, Madison noted that some form of guide for what each tab would contain could be helpful to someone newer to the program, or even someone not associated with the program at all. Madison and Stacy both felt there could be more space between the words in the paragraph section and the page background, and that their closeness to the edge of the page made it seem pretty squeezed in. None of my evaluators had any trouble downloading or opening the attachments, pictures, and media links, but the ones included were relatively basic in design.
Content: The content used in my site is very cut and dry. It is purely factual information, such as concert dates and times. All three evaluators were immediately aware of what the site's purpose was. Madison stated again that a description of what each tab would contain would be helpful. Stacy noted that some of the dates that were provided at the beginning of the year are not included in the embedded calendar.
Credibility: Again, this was a very cut-and-dry area, as there is no opinion side to my site. Stacy was particularly fond that there was information about the directors of the program so that she knew our history, not only in college, but our outside performance credits. Though she has trusted us with her daughter for eight years, it made her feel even better about the quality of teaching her daughter is getting in orchestra. None of my evaluators are familiar with html or copyright, at least in the image form.
| Madison | Susie | Stacy | |
| Design: | |||
| Document has table of contents | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Displays sound design principles | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| Intuitive navigation | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Homepage linked on all pages | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Multimedia has clear purpose | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Multimedia loads quickly | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Text is easy to read and contrasts with background | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Site content is widely accessible | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Content: | |||
| Pages have clear and appropriate title in the title bar | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Links are appropriate | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Links are functional | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Content embedded no more than two layers deep | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Site encourages users to return | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Information is current and accurate | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Site serves useful purpose for an identified audience | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Credibility: | |||
| Information regarding author and credentials | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Contact e-mail is included | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Site is bias-free | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Material is original and included appropriate citations | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Correct punctuation, spelling, and grammar | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Date material was updated | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Madison Straatmann Evaluation
Susie Thierbach Evaluation
Stacy Hymer Evaluation
The purpose of my site is to provide a single location for parents, students, and the directors of the Washington School District Orchestra program to find out information about concerts, get dates, sign up for fundraisers, and get further tools for what is learned in class. My use cases apply strongly to the site that I have created. Even just in the tabs, it covers the use cases that involve the students and parents. As I am the one building the site, my final use case, which was for directors, is reached just by the fact that my co-teacher and I can decide what needs to be changed or added and it can be done in an instant. For the most part, the site functioned well for my evaluators. The main issues were with an incorrectly linked element on a page, and the desire for the links to open in a new tab.
In response to my evaluations, I will make the following changes:
After seeing my classmates' pages, I have decided to make some additional changes as well. I would like to change the look of my navigation bar to individual blocks, instead of an entire bar. Aesthetically I like the look of that more than my current page. I need to change the text color of my entire footer section so that it is easier to see. I also want to change the wording in the footer section of how you can contact me.
As a performer, I'm always wary to get feedback from my peers, because it can be hard to face your own shortcomings. It was, however, enlightening that my former students and parents in the program feel comfortable enough with my role in their lives to speak candidly and provide me with what I considered excellent feedback. I also really appreciate the feedback of my classmates, not just in this assignment, but all through the course up to this point.
I have to say that this class, up to this point, has been incredibly enjoyable, even in the most frustrating times when I first started to code. I feel extraordinarily proud that I have been able to create what I have, and I feel much more aware of what makes a website work, or, if it doesn't, why. Every page I visit now on the internet I am looking for things I like and want to learn more about, and also what I don't like and how to avoid those things.