Ecommerce Site Review (activity)

On October 6, 2004 at 4:33 PM, tahid ahmed wrote:

i dont know if this is the right discussion room but i think that this site is very boring. Too much information is crampt in to very small spaces. When i come on to this website and try to access lecture notes and read comments e.t.c. I feel like falling a sleep. after a while i get headaches and just sack reading the lecture notes. I dont think that this site is all that user friendly yet, but i can understand due to the fact that it is still under construction. I have asked a few friends to also look at the website and they also thnk that the information that your providing is to cramped together and and does not look in the slightest way interesting or eye catching. if i was not studying this module E. commerce i would only glance at this web site and never come on it again. i hope that your happy with this feedback and please dont take it personnal , its strictly business.

On October 6, 2004 at 4:37 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Happy for your comments tahid. I'd love to know how you would redesign this site to make it less "boring". It has a very well defined purpose and that is to provide you with information, documents and a place to discuss. Have you seen other sites (from academics) that does this in a better way?

As you say it is still under development and I will be adding and changing things over the coming months. Today I have added a new dropdown on the left hand side so that you can find all the ecommerce things in one place. Hope that helps!

Do let me have other suggestions. J.

On October 6, 2004 at 8:04 PM, tahid ahmed wrote:

i dont think that comments or discussion section should be anywhere near the activity information. There should be some kind of link at the bottom of the page allowing them to access another page in which the user can put their comments or read other comments rather then under the activity information. This is because the activity information is the information that the user has to take in not the comments. what you have done is bang all the information in one big chunk and told the user the deal with it, rather then breaking the information down into different sections. There is also to much information on the page to start of with and all comments or discusiions are optional. most of pupils will look or glance at all of the information to see the mass of it before reading the informtion that is relevent to them. I can give you many ideas and i am sure other users can as well, but remember even though the information that we need is there for the course try to make it friendly and easy to use as well as understand as some of us are exploring new sectors of technology.

On October 6, 2004 at 8:08 PM, Jonathan wrote:

I do understand your comments Tahid but I have to say that having used Blackboard for 4 years I have never been able to generate the level of discussion that I have already seen here.

By integrating the delivery of information with the discussion I am hoping to allow all of my students to ask more, discuss more and understand more.

Let's see how it goes!

On October 6, 2004 at 8:55 PM, tauhid wrote:

integrating the delievery and order of information is a very important aspect and must always be looked at. i cant distinguish very well your comments from my comments. put some colour in text to seperate students comments from lecturer.

hope that this feed back helps

On October 6, 2004 at 8:56 PM, jonathan briggs wrote:

Colouring my comments is a good idea - I'll see what I can do. thanks. J

On October 7, 2004 at 4:55 PM, Zim wrote:

Hi there J, I like the site but I think it needs a bit more colour and perhaps a separate discussion forum where we can discuss as a group every aspect of the course. Will be great way for you to get feedback and different ideas from everyone as well as help us understand the course more. I am sure you could easily implement a php driven forum like phpbb or something similar. Just a thought ;)

Zim

On October 7, 2004 at 5:01 PM, Jonathan wrote:

I'll pass your comments about colour onto my designer Zim. He will probably reply here. As to the idea of a forum, we'll see. I ran a forum for this course last year and there was relatively little activity. Everyone should feel free to discuss issues here. If you want to talk about a specific issue then let me know and I'll add a post to start off the discussion.

On October 7, 2004 at 5:45 PM, tauhid ahmed wrote:

how do we go about e.mailing the answers to this weeks activitys?

there is no direct link to send the results to. can you please tell me how this will work? i have read the activity in word format but how do you want to receive the feedback?

thanks

On October 7, 2004 at 5:48 PM, Zim wrote:

Kool J, will be looking forward to the site changes. Also I would like to point out a new (though I am sure u have already heard about and probably implementing in your work) is blogger alerts, form live cast http://www.messagecast.net/brochure/prod_blog_home.html

I think this will be great addition to your site, as you can alert those of us who want to receive them on updates on your site on our e-mail, text or msn. Such as new lecture notes, lecture topics ect.

I think this is great way to make people away of changes o your site. I am currently implementing for a company so there are able to send alerts on new products and offers to all their customers.

Zim

Don’t know if this is a comment of not, just an idea which I think may work. ;)

http://www.messagecast.net/brochure/prod_blog_home.html

On October 7, 2004 at 5:52 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Tauhid

There is a link to the survey you need to use to feed back your answers on the top right of the activity page. In case you can't find it, here it is...

http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB223U9ZCAXAR

On October 7, 2004 at 5:53 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Zim - thanks for the link and the suggestion.

On October 9, 2004 at 10:48 AM, Rafahan Waheed wrote:

I was not at Kingston in the first year, but at West Thames College studying a HND. During that time we were sold about how great Blackboard was and how it is the future of leraning. When I arrived at Kingston last year, I felt Blackboard was a big 'let down' considering what our course leader was saying at WTC.
Having only used this since last week I admit that the site does look overcrowded it, espically at the top. However I would rather use this type of set-up, then Blackboard.
Hopefully, with our comments Jonathan can impove it over time.

On October 10, 2004 at 10:40 PM, Julian Wiegmann wrote:

The survey was fun, but regarding the web design of this site.
The overcrowding is due to too much text being displayed. Especially at the main page, so much information it’s confusing my poor little student brain on what to look at. Am I supposed to look at the left column or the middle one?
Regarding the layout. Here is what I would try.

The Jonathan Briggs logo goes on top and underneath in a separate bar in a bigger font I would put the navigation buttons for text (?whats this) home postings etc. I would also separate them somehow maybe with a | sign or something, but defiantly a bit bigger and bold. Then leave some space and underneath the main content of the page. The left column should contain the search and the Google adds and the right column the recent comments. The text “Welcome to a site about education and research and development in eCommerce, Mobile Business and Entrepreneurship.” …well I don’t know but it really looks misplaced where it currently is.
And in the main column I would put more space between each item. After the read and discuss page there is not enough space or a good separation between the posted items.
Check out this blog http://www.sensibleerection.com/ its not porn but does contain blog entries sometimes to links and advertisement sometimes, so not work safe, but good news postings and intresting articles and sites. Might be inappropriate for KU, but its very popular and a good blog.

[Editors note - I did have a look at the blog and its not work safe! I have therefore deleted the link although left the URL - its up to you 10/10/4]

On October 9, 2004 at 5:05 PM, Julian Wiegmann wrote:

oh and regarding the recent comments. they should be on top in its own colueme.. not have any text above them.

On October 9, 2004 at 5:02 PM, Rob wrote:

I am going to play devil's advocate here for a second. I want to add that over the 2-3 years of using blackboard, I have never found a problem with it. It has structure that is uniform throughout the different modules. Lecture Notes are in a "Lecture Notes" folder and Workshop details are often in a "Workshops" folder and so on. Granted that Blackboard is down every now and again but I find its downtime no more frequent than my Online Banking websites or Ticketmaster. The main problem I have found with BB is the lack of commitment from lecturers to use the service in the way of posting announcements and notes etc.
As far as discussion is concerned, I am not adverse to it, I have often found the discussion boards being abused in a way for students to put down lecturers or each other and often an opportunity for students to show off there massively in-depth knowledge of certain topics. Personally, I am not interested and so very rarely visit the Discussion Boards.
As far as this website is concerned, I agree with some comments posted that there is a mass of information on the front page and the navigation of the site at times can be confusing. For me, it would be interesting to get Ed Whitehead's (HCI Lecturer) opinion of the site.
My final comment is about the site as a whole. I think it is a very interesting 'experiment' but it is that word that worries me. Personally, I would prefer all lecture notes and relevant materials posted on BB in parallel. Without trying to appear high-and-mighty, I would prefer that a final year module not have any experimenting given that the semester is approximately 9 weeks in length. I would prefer to know where to find the notes I need, the links to any assignments and any recent announcments made and I would like to find these on BB when I am reading the other announcements and picking up notes for all of my other modules. Thats not to say I would not use this site, but from a work ethics point of view, having my final year eCommerce lecture notes and assignments next to Jonathan's recent holiday snaps doesnt work for me.

On October 9, 2004 at 5:08 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Thanks Julian for some well considered comments. This is an experiment but not in the way you suggest. The biggest thing is opening up my teaching to a bigger audience - this should be good for you because it means that my clients, colleagues and other students get to comment and see it too. Public accountability!

I will pass the design comments to Iain, my designer, and see what he makes of them.

On October 9, 2004 at 5:12 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Oh and the holiday snaps? I do want you to see what else I am doing. I travel a lot (rarely on holiday) and I want students to get a sense of what I'm up to. If you hate them - ignore it! :-)

On October 10, 2004 at 8:17 PM, Julian Wiegmann wrote:

Just want to say that you did post that link I gave you Jonathan...
it does contain an adult blog entery every now and again and I don't want to get in trouble or something. I know you review it before posting but maybe you didnt want to post the link.

On October 10, 2004 at 8:19 PM, Rob wrote:

Please dont get me wrong Jonathan, I dont HATE your pictures. I too love NZ and have visited a few times myself. I also think that they are appropriate for such a website that is about you, your business, your spare time, your teachings....and all that is said with the domain name itself. The main concern I have with such a website is the focus, and when I view a website with all of the above, and more topics I think the focus is lost, and in my mind I think the focus for us should be our eCommerce module.
After reading quite a few articles about you, and written by you on the web I think you are very interesting as a person with a lot of knowledge to share and advice to give, but this being my final year of my degree and I want to get the most out of this module as I do with every other module....I just hope I can with this experimental method of learning, as I and the rest of us wont get a chance to do it again if we dont.

On October 10, 2004 at 8:25 PM, Jonathan wrote:

Don't worry Rob. If you choose 'e-commerce' from the left hand side drop down you will get exactly the same sort of content as you would have got on Blackboard. Just the lecture notes, assignments, activities for your course plus the ability to add comments.

If you want to read more widely then great but different people will get want different things.

I will do some cosmetic changes to the commenting tomorrow which should make the threads easier to read.

On October 11, 2004 at 1:31 PM, tauhid wrote:

thanks for the link MR J

it was not clear on the site how to access the survey.

On October 19, 2004 at 11:33 AM, Mandeep Deegon wrote:

Im sorry but i cant stand this site. There is no organisation WHAT SO EVER!!! All the documents are all over the place. FIX UP.

On October 19, 2004 at 11:37 AM, Jonathan wrote:

Thanks Mandeep. There is of course some organisation: by time and by category. It is deliberately deeply cross referenced in order to provide you with multiple opportunities to stumble across things and discover new stuff.

If you go to the drop down on the left hand side and select e-commerce you will get a listing of all the specific material for your course which is virtually identical to how it used to appear in Blackboard.

I appreciate your time in making a comment and it telling it like you feel. I will be reviewing the design regularly. How would you suggest it should be organised?

On October 19, 2004 at 12:13 PM, Mandeep Deegon wrote:

Blackboard is what you should have stuck with in my opinion, it is there for a purpose and rather than you spending time trying to create your own site I think you should have stuck to what everyone is used to using now. Having your own site just complicates things, and this final year is complicated enough!!! Given time i will get used to your site im sure. Thanks for the quick response.

P.S - it is very hard for me to get down to your lectures as i work on Tuesdays and cant afford not to work (financial commitments), so I am kind of relying on your site to get me through this module, I understand attending the lectures are important and hope to attend at some point as my contract at work is near its end.

On October 19, 2004 at 12:26 PM, Jonathan wrote:

I did Blackboard for 4 years and never got any real feedback: discussions were empty, it was often down and it was hard to make it available to different groups of students. I also did not mail/SMS when you posted a comment.

Do ask lots of questions if you are having difficulty attending the lectures. Or give me a call (number on my door).

On October 19, 2004 at 4:08 PM, Iain wrote:

What sort of organization/features does Blackboard have that this site does not? Not being a student at Kingston, I am curious as to how the students that use it would make it better.

Being "used" to something does not nesseccarily make something better.