Week 10 - Outside of Class

Call with Mom's House of Lancaster:

I spoke with Dawn, a woman who has been working with Mom's House of Lancaster for 2 years now. She started as a teacher with the non-profit and then had to switch over to data management. With her new job of data management she is having applications come to her, organizes the sign up genius for donations and still works in teaching the kids.

• Background of the non-profit:
• Started in 1991 and has had over 300 graduates through the program. 
• It is all about assisting single parents who desire further education and cannot find the financial means to do so. They work towards making sure a single parent can have all the tools to better their life for their child and better their education in the process.
• Their education is StarFour certified through Keystone Stars Programs which means they have the highest level of accreditation 
• About 48% of families with single parents are in poverty in Lancaster County so Mom's House looks to assist all who are facing poverty
• Website:
• Through the website parents can apply to be a client and have access to all the programs and benefits at no cost such as food and clothing banks, tutoring, an education area, things parents could need for school projects and much more
• The website focuses on providing all the information to it's users on how to apply and make it a quick process for parent's who need to know what care is available and when
• People can also donate on the website
• Around Christmas time they highlight a sign up genius for people who want to sign up for Christmas items and people like Dawn are able to keep track of what is going on fairly quickly
• The website also highlights big events that are going on 
• With education from this non-profit the teachers are able to track milestones and kids experience individualized teaching (infants through preschool age).

General Notes on the Website:

• Issues of repeating tabs and information ("Our Work" - Programs and Success Stories)
• Extra give tab takes you to another website
• Events tab is listed twice
• "Also under "Help Now"
• Lists could be organized better (needs list and Christmas list)
• Redundant in Volunteer being under "Help Now" and "Participate"
• "Our Work" and "Parent" tab have parent and childcare program under both
• Two "Donate" tabs
• 3 menu bars and the top and bottom are the same in terms of information

5 Methods:

After reading through the terms I decided on these five terms to use for my observation-

1. Card Sorting: This method would be helpful to use because my website includes a lot of information and some is repeated in multiple tabs. It would be beneficial to my website to figure out how this information could be better organized or the best grouping for each category. 
1. Open and Closed Card Sorting; Have users sort into categories and then have groups of tabs and they name the categories
2. A/B Testing: This method would allow me to find a better way to display navigation on the website. The website includes 3 different menu bars, so I wanted to put more research into how all of the information can be displayed and compare to the original version using this method.
3. Guerrilla Usability Testing: Similar to the A/B testing I feel as if this method would help with finding a new way to organize the website. By using this method, I can gain feedback on the prototype I constructed as well as refine it based off of the feedback. This will allow me to quickly find and fix problems within the organization of the website.
4. I Like, I Wish, What If: This method can be used to gain a users feedback on what they like, wish and want for the website. From this information I can find way to categorize the information better. With multiple users I can also compare answers to see if any are similar or what factors seem to be more important to users.
1. Call the website again and gain their perspective
5. System Usability Scale: For this method I plan to ask user's questions on where they believe content is throughout the website. This will allow me to find out what user's prefer in where their content is categorized. 

Quantitative Audit:

For the quantitative audit I focused on the top navigational bar and then continued with the main navigation bar at the top of the page.