harpreetgill

=Harpreet Gill - Usability Analysis Glossary=

Timeline:
-Contributed a majority of the content and design to the Team Dulku Page. -Created the Questionnaire Page. -Added a paragraph to Online Gambling. -Did some minor formatting to the Research Method Page. -Added examples of E-commerce to the E-commerce Page.

Analysis and Reflection:
1. This is my first time using wikispaces and I’m excited because I have heard so much about it through my peers. I’m interested to see what features wikispaces provides that makes it such a great learning environment. I hope it allows for a lot of online collaboration because I know this aspect if very useful in group projects and online discussions. I also intend on helping other students manage their wikispaces by adding new content where applicable and leaving feedback on their content. However I’m also worried that my contributions will not always be correct, which could ruin the wikispace I edit. Nevertheless it will be a learning process I anticipate I will enjoy.


 * Update* - I’ve now been using wikispaces for about a month and I must say I’m extremely impressed. It offers a ton of features that make learning a lot more efficient. Furthermore all the course material is easily viewable and the graphical user interface is great because it is simplistic, which makes it more effective in navigating throughout the wikispaces.

2. When I’m reading through other wikispaces, I ask myself a couple of basic questions before I proceed to edit any work. I first ask is there enough content on the topic. Secondly was I able to understand the information presented on the wikispace. Finally, does it entail a good graphical user interface? If there is enough content and I get a thorough understanding of the material I will choose not to edit the work. However, if I read through the information and I don’t feel satisfied with what I read, I try to add to the site without changing the whole document. However, I never try not to delete any students content because there was a lot of effort that was put into the work and students should have the right to display their content in any shape or form. I think it’s a great idea that students have the capabilities of editing each others work because students do not always have the right information on their topics. And at times the content is not always complete, thus allowing other students to add more information. Finally, I don’t tend to check my work very often because I usually feel satisfied with my content, but recently I have been checking to see what other students think and have contributed.

3. My views haven’t really changed over the course of this semester. This was definitely a new experience for me and I learned a lot through collaborative learning. The amount of features and customization wikispaces allowed was definitely beneficial in the learning experience. The great graphical user interface made it easy to navigate throughout the site and being able to edit different pages gave me a sense I was part of the community.

I believe adding a community message board would help create further discussion among users of wikispaces. They could discuss issues like usability and accessibility all in one thread. It would also be a structured discussion without any confusion of who is saying what. I thought of this idea because when people are posting information on a page, it is not always structured meaning people might type their information on different parts of the space without others knowing. I think the most beneficial aspect of wikispaces is the speed of the user interface compared to that of other online teaching tools.

The course material could quickly be downloaded without any hassle and at very fast speeds. Everything the student needed was situated on the toolbar. The lecture notes, course outlines, and summary notes could be viewed without downloading anything. If you wanted to view a document on webct vista you would most likely have to download it, whereas on wikispaces it can be viewed on your browser. This also saved me a lot of time preparing for tests because I hardly ever had to download anything off wikispaces. Thus, it made it easier to study for tests and start group projects, since the information was already posted on the site.