Easy Enough for Anyone

Presented at edUi 2009

Joel Pattison
Associate Director of Creative Services
William & Mary

The internet abounds with free services for creating a blog. But what about tools for building a traditional website? Even with the rise of social networks, the demand for professional/personal faculty websites hasn’t abated.

In 2008 William & Mary launched Tribe Voices, a web-based application to fulfill this need. The goal: ultimate ease of use.

This session explores the Tribe Voices development process, with a particular emphasis on user interface and usability. Topics of discussion include:

Reasons to design the UI first – before writing code or finalizing the feature set
Building a working UI prototype with Photoshop and HTML
Conducting usability testing with an interface prototype and students/faculty/staff
Creating a “quick start wizard” that eliminates the need for training
Writing detailed, easy to follow documentation and integrating it into the UI
Using interface mockups to build momentum on campus for the product’s initial release

Tribe Voices has been a resounding success at William & Mary; consider:

It has been used to create more than 900 websites since May 2008
In the last 14 months IT has received only 55 help tickets about Tribe Voices
Tribe Voices received an “Award of Excellence” from the University and College Design Association