Mission Statement for Website Usability Group

Group Leader: George Lewe

Mission:

This group is responsible for formulating a plan how to improve usefulness and usability of the website for site visitors. This would include ways to make information on the site easier to find, ways to make important information more visible, expansion of site services and the encouragement of more user involvement.

This plan should include identification of external resources required, if any. Once the plan is formulated it is the responsibility of the group to set milestone dates for the implementation of the plan and to monitor and manage that implementation.

Scope:

Areas to be explored would include:

• Improvements to current software classification system
• Evaluate search improvements (tags, tag clouds, search engine, etc.)
• Alternate search along the lines of "I want a software program that …"
• Creation of a new front page with much more "currently hot" type information to attract the attention of regular site visitors
• Addition of vBulletin forum and integration into Drupal
• User rating system for category reviews and/or editors
• Improvements to the site's appearance
• Ways to improve feedback to users and editors
• Ways to make it easier for visitors to create new content

Time frame:

A draft plan should be completed by the 21st of September 2008.

Who should join

We are looking for people with ideas on the above topics who are prepared to spend to spend 1-2 hours a week discussing and evolving those ideas. Those with practical or academic backgound in website design, CSS or the Drupal CMS are particularly welcome but anyone with a logical mind and enthusiasm is encouraged to join.

How to Join This Group

This is a closed group so use the site contact form to send a short note to me with your name and any interests or relevant experience.  (You need to be logged in to this site to use the contact form.)

I'll then send you an invite. Normally your membership will be approved within 24 hours.

George Lewe