Spirituality and Usability Aaron Garrett Jacqueline Hundley David

Spirituality and Usability Aaron Garrett Jacqueline Hundley David Thornton

Introduction l Preliminary case study to enhance the usability of an existing religious website – – l Experiment compare original and enhanced site Users’ evaluation of sites Sites dealing with religion and spirituality – – Created by believers with little experience due to low financial profit by designers Possible high customer base

Background l Few resources on spiritual/religious websites – – View users ethnographically like elderly or disabled Community design and social interaction E-commerce Cognitive factors

Community Design / Social Interaction l Important to developing web-based community of believers – – l Require honest social interaction Share personal experiences Facilitate empathy Privacy and trust Bob’s ACL Bulletin Board – – – Shared common injury needing rehabilitation Common love of sports Need for empathy – frustrated and depressed

Community Design / Social Interaction l Four-components of design criteria for online social interaction systems (Girgensohn and Lee) – Common ground l l – Awareness l l – Good orientation and navigational cues Differentiate unread/new posts from old Enablers l – Shared understandings among collaborators Use of personal profiles Opinion polls, rating systems, or discussion boards to self-determine group’s course of action Place-making l Discussion board policies may emerge over time. . . self regulating

E-Commerce l l Spiritual and religious organizations are entering the world of online business Profitability not necessarily a goal of spiritual websites, but a strong business model allows flexibility services offered Many factors contribute to the success and failure on an online business Traditional retail activities may not be the same online

E-Commerce l Fong presents a model of how fundamental personnel work together in an online business Marketing, content, transactions, customer service – Attract customers into the primary site l l – Interact – customers interest in the information on the site l – Static or dynamic information Act – capturing and processing an order l – Advertising via mailings, emails, banners on other sites Sales > temporarily change of information on the site Shopping carts, order tracking, taxes, shipping, payments React – customer service l Help desk or webmaster email

E-Commerce l Customer assurance – l Small unknown online businesses at a disadvantage Methods – Assurance protocol l l – Timely acknowledgement of transaction by seller Known trusted third party vouches for trustworthiness of small business Umbrella assurance l Known entity acts as a host for the small business

Cognitive Factors l Website developers should utilize a user-centered design process – – – l Meaningful items vs. unfamiliar jargon Concrete words vs. abstract words Retrieval cues and standardization Humans use known problem solving strategies and – – Can block solving a problem by using wrong interaction Design should allow for correction without penalty

Seacoast Ministries Case Study l l Local Christian group – Seacoastministries. org Educational materials for churches Community interaction Training for custom certifications

Design Goals l Look and feel – – – l l l “Wow” “sea coast” motif Not “business-like” or “too religious” Clearer navigation Accessible to large demographic (many types of users) Easily maintainable and modifiable

Cascading Style Sheets l l l l Simpler, more manageable HTML code Documents look good at any resolution Finer and more predictable control over presentation Define the look of a site in one place, modify whole site by changing just one file Older browsers can still see pages People with disabilities have better access Simple syntax – uses a number of English keywords to specify the names of various style properties

Original Design l l Dull Confusing

Modified Design l l Cleaner Simpler Unified color scheme “beachy”

Experimental Setup l l Each site was evaluated to determine how long it took users to complete a given task. Participants were asked to perform the same five tasks for each site. Times for each task were recorded. Tasks were chosen to represent typical information of interest to most users.

Experimental Setup l l Participants also responded to a questionnaire about each site. The questionnaire attempted to measure user satisfaction using several Likert scales.

Results What telephone it cost to receive a year's How much does number should be called to reach Seacoast Baileys' newsletter? subscription of the Ministries?

Results The website of this website is information This purpose provides enough always clear the services offered. aboutto me.

Remarks l Seacoast Ministries “requested” that specific design features be included. – – l Dealt primarily with look-and-feel Time-consuming to implement Two design considerations had to be omitted: – – Empathic communities E-commerce

Conclusions l l l Modified site was successful in decreasing users’ times to complete tasks (easier navigation) Users felt that modified site made information accessible and clear (consistent design) Anecdotally, users generally felt that the modified site was more aesthetically pleasing.

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