ENG 598 Internship Week Three Deliverable Hazel Mynes

Annotated Bibliography Part 3

1. McMahon, K. (2005). An exploration of the importance of website usability from a business

perspective. Student e-Dissertation, MSc e-Business, Robert Gordon University. Retrieved from

http://www.flowtheory.com/KTMDissertation.pdf

This resource, An Exploration Of The Importance Of Website Usability From A Business

Perspective is a dissertation covering the business perspective of usability in website design. The

author compiles throughout the paper a list of evaluated elements and their results pertaining to

how business managers work with web designers in the development of an e-commerce website,

and how aware they are of important ideas related to usability (McMahon, 2005).

The paper shows that "teamwork is essential to create effective and successful e-commerce

websites" (McMahon, 2005). Therefore, business managers (or owners in the case of

lightfootgallery.com) need to have an understanding of the issues involved to enable them to

become useful and effective members of the team. It is incumbent upon the web designer as part of

that team to educate the manager/owner in these issues. This is one thing I have made it a point to

do with Ms. Lightfoot in the meetings and phone discussions we have had concerning her website.

Making decisions on placement layout, and content are areas in which I take the time to point out

best practices and norms for reaching Ms. Lightfoot's target audiences.

Another issue involved in usability is of who should be responsible for usability issues when

working as a team to design a website (McMahon, 2005). Rather than Ms. Lightfoot feeling like she

is responsible to know everything about web design, even though she is quite sure about some

things that she wants to include, we work as a team, with me giving my knowledge and input to help

her make good design and usability decisions. We are then both responsible for applying sound

principles and implementing our ideas in a way that includes usability principles, but also takes into

account good design elements to present the business in the best light.
ENG 598 Internship Week Three Deliverable Hazel Mynes

We accomplish both our goals through teamwork, including her ideas about how she wants

the site to look and feel in the quest to reach her customer base, and my ideas about how to make

the site user friendly and functional. The McMahon (2005) article has us look at "whether usability is

paramount or whether it is necessary to provide something more (such as entertainment). With Ms.

Lightfoot's website, I think that the visual aesthetic (which can be a form of entertainment), is of

prime importance since her trade is in the visual arts. Kwon (2002) made the assertion that "To

achieve success in e-commerce, website design must.be focused on the customer, and the current

trend is towards simplicity. This idea of simplicity is a principle in which Ms. Lightfoot has definite

ideas about how to accomplish such a goal. Her leadership in this area has contributed to my being

able to build her a functional and beautiful website working together as a team to implement her

dream.

2. Visser, E. B., & Weideman, M. (2014). Fusing website usability and search engine optimisation.

South African Journal of Information Management, 16(1), 1-9. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com.liblink.uncw.edu/docview/1534142288?accountid=14606

The journal article, Fusing Website Usability and Search Engine Optimisation gives readers

another facet of consideration on the subject of usability, and that is of search engine optimization,

how it affects usability, and vice versa. Visser (2014) points out that e-commerce websites require a

high ranking in search engines if the sites are to be profitable and successful. Usability principles of

easy navigation, interaction, and transactional ability (Visser, 2014) are important to website

users, even when they are not aware they are interacting with a website usability principle.

Using good keywords to promote positive search engine results is a design key that may not

be visible to the website viewers, but it is important in getting the desired content of the website to

the consumer, who is the target audience for the website. A beautifully designed website with
ENG 598 Internship Week Three Deliverable Hazel Mynes

awesome functionality and fabulous products will be of no consequence if potential customers

cannot locate the information through search engine optimization. This is why I intend to apply good

SEO keywords, descriptions, and titles (metatags) to Ms. Lightfoots website.

This article addresses the relationship between search engine optimisation and website

usability (Visser, 2014). It found that there were mostly complementary issues between the two.

One example is this, They found that website authors must regard the search engine optimisation

guidelines (SEO elements) as priorities whilst designing and developing websites if search engines

are to crawl, index and rank websites for targeted keywords. Since, SEO and WU will form the

foundation for successful websites (Visser, 2014), it is imperative that SEO is taken into account

when planning for website usability. This is a major goal we will have when working on the SEO

metatags and elements of Ms. Lightfoots website.

ENG 598 Internship Week Three Deliverable Hazel Mynes

Works Cited

Kwon, O.B., Kim, C-R., & Lee, E. J. (2002). Impact of website information design factors on consumer

ratings of web-based auction sites. Behaviour & Information Technology. [online] 21(6).

Retrieved from: http://www.ebscohost.com [Accessed 4 April 2005]

McMahon, K. (2005). An exploration of the importance of website usability from a business

perspective. Student e-Dissertation, MSc e-Business, Robert Gordon University. Retrieved

from http://www.flowtheory.com/KTMDissertation.pdf

Visser, E. B., & Weideman, M. (2014). Fusing website usability and search engine optimisation. South

African Journal of Information Management, 16(1), 1-9. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com.liblink.uncw.edu/docview/1534142288?accountid=14606