Feedback on mock short answer questions
Written by: Jonathan Briggs
January 12, 2006 [3279 views]
Thanks to the almost 50% of you who had a go at this week’s mock exam survey. I hope you will all find the following notes useful.
Choice of company
A good mix of companies and from the sampling I did they can all be improved although some more than others.
Identification of 3 faults
Some of you chose big faults – this was good. Others chose minute details such as the working of buttons – this was less good. Imagine you are a professional consultant going in to advise a customer – you identify the big problems: design, integration, marketing, customer journey and then use the small details to show what you mean.
Graphical and navigation problems
You will typically asked to identify a specific type of problem and most of you did. Identify clearly these specific problems. You will lose marks if you discuss other issues here. Imagine you are sitting in an interview with a client and someone asks you to describe how the graphics could be improved – you only talk about the graphics.
Linking changes in these specific areas to the faults you have identified
This is where you can begin to demonstrate your professionalism particularly if you have chosen BIG faults. Your faults may however need work in other areas and you should say so. Marks will be awarded for showing how you would deal with your faults while answering the question. Take time to study the question to see exactly what is being asked.
How many person days would it take to make these (graphical and navigation) changes?
Your answers were all over the place! Come on. Think about how long it would take YOU to do a good job. We had answers from 2 days to 1.5 years! I am not looking for exact figures but you need to set out the work involved and be realistic about the time involved. Keep in mind project management, integration, database work, graphical design, meetings. This is why the companies you have chosen need to be a realistic size. A typical project should be 50-150 days if you are going to make any significant improvements but you need to think about how this breaks down.
How does the site perform in web marketing?
I want evidence. I have given you some tools to help you measure how well the site is positioned in terms of reputation (PageRank) and traffic. Some of you really get this. Bland statements about how it seems OK will not get you all the marks.
What percentage improvement would you expect to see?
No company is going to invest significantly to achieve a 1% improvement. Once again you need to be realistic and consider the sort of investment that they are making. This is a very hard question but I would go out on a limb and look for a 50-100% improvement for any site that is very poor. Of course if the site is already very good it will be hard to make this sort of impact.
List 3 competitors
Any good consultant will have examined similar companies in the market and I was glad to see that you could do this.
Compare with competitors
Don’t be bland and tell me that your company is between its competitors and leave it at that. Once again generate evidence!
What lessons can be learned from the competitors?
Be careful in answering this. You are being asked what is better in the competitor site that could be copied and improved upon in your site. Once again be specific rather than general and provide evidence of the ways in which your competitor sites are better.
Blogging
Watch for the sting in the tail. This was not a trick question but a way of separating the good answers from the average. Some of you rose to the challenge and described the possible effects on customer service, reputation, company image etc. Others just ignored it.
Recent comments:
What do you think?
On January 12, 2006 at 8:20 PM, k0207658 wrote:
Could you please explain what you mean by 'blogging'.
Jonathan replies: Anyone doing a course in our department should be able to keep in touch with whats going on in the IT world. Where have you been? What ever happened to searching on Google?