Planning:•Originating documents- The PR Committee bears the responsibilities of maintaining contact with alumni and the community. Semesterly documents include:

•Alumni emails•Alumni Assoc. grant proposals•Post-program reports

•Needs of users- The committee needs to be able to access older versions of these documents in order to create new ones. Master copies kept by Alumni Assoc.•Intended functions- Any new deliverable should be editable, printable, and easily retrievable •Resources: Previously written grant proposals, program reports, and alumni emails

Design Plan:•User analysis- Committee members, Dept. Chair, and Alumni Assoc. need this process simplified to encourage participation and easy access to older documents without searching old emails•Task analysis- Grant proposals and program reports will be editable and printable, while a calendar will provide important due dates for committee•Usability goals- Cross-browser compatibility, accessibility by any potential future committee member or Dept Chair without requiring password•Information structure- A site map helped determine how nodes within the site would be nested and which links were important enough to be included in the main menu

Development:•Revising content using javascript- The site offers Word versions of each document, but the dynamic content includes an editable text area for each grant proposal and program report•Code snippet- var editing = false;if (document.getElementById && document.createElement) {

var butt = document.createElement('BUTTON');

var buttext = document.createTextNode('Update Changes');

butt.appendChild(buttext);butt.onclick = saveEdit; }

function catchIt(e) {if (editing) return;if (!document.getElementById || !

document.createElement) return;if (!e) var obj = window.event.srcElement;else var obj = e.target;while (obj.nodeType != 1) {

obj = obj.parentNode;}

Development:•Working with existing content meant making it more accessible •Archiving- One function of the site is to create an archive of documents that every user can access without tedious searching or emailing. Retrievable documents include:

•Spring and Fall alumni emails (2011)•Spring and Fall grant proposals in .docx and .html form (2011)•Fall post-program report in .docx and .html form (2011)•URLs of links that need to be included on each alumni email•Viewable image of final layout for alumni emails

Development:•Calendar- Google provides a dynamic calendar associated with your Google account that can be added to any web page

•Pros- Important dates can be added and reminders can be sent by email to a list of recipients. Dates are also color-coded to delineate them from other important dates such as holidays•Cons- The Google calendar is associated with only one Google account, so it would not be editable by other present or future committee members. Also, dates change constantly (for example, the release date of the fall alumni email STILL hasn’t happened), which requires more attention to calendar updates than anticipated

Production:•Site production and pre-production usability testing included:

Coding and adjusting javascript and style sheets for each page ensuring that each individual edit box functioned and was an appropriate sizeCreating a simplified but recognizable site banner and menu that would appear attractive in print and on lineAdding and testing the calendar to ensure it was “snappy”Print previewing each document page and making necessary adjustments to text and image size, text wrapping, etc.Making sure that all links to outside sites or documents were up-to-date and functioning

Evaluation:•Designer testing- Printing hardcopies resulted in minor adjustments to the main page, but no changes could be made to the main menu, which cuts off on the right hand side when printing in portrait style•User testing- Users seemed pleased with the simplified layout and design, though often overlooked the instructions on each page for using the text edit boxes. It was also recommended those be removed so as not to show up on the printed copies of the proposals. •I decided against removing the instructions for 2 reasons:

•Instructions are necessary•Printing hardcopies from the website would most likely be for filing rather than formal submission to grant committee

Lessons learned:– With more time and resources it would be ideal to create editable documents that are

also savable. This can be done in Google docs, but ideally a password and account wouldn’t need to be required

– Javascript is a fickle beast– Due dates change constantly, but the calendar is still beneficial in providing a rough

history of when events took place– ODU’s webDAV does not enable remote access from a laptop even after successful sign

in to the Cisco client– The site will have to be moved to someone else’s page when I am no longer on this

committee or at this university since moving it to the shared departmental drive would remove its online components and make it difficult to use

– As much as the committee and Dept Chair can be on-board with this, the Alumni Assoc. still seems to prefer emails, so these editable documents will need to be copied and pasted into emails to send to A.A. contacts