E- BUSINESS FINAL GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Paper instructions:
E- BUSINESS FINAL GROUP ASSIGNMENT

BUSI323 – Final Group Assignment – Cognitive Analysis of Two e-Business Web Portals
Worth 30% of your grade in the course
20% paper and 10% presentation

Purpose:
This assignment provides an opportunity for you to use (apply) some of the concepts, criteria, and ideas presented in the course while comparing two competing Web sites.
Task:
Pick an area in e-business you are interested in, and find two web sites (i.e. portals) that address your interest area. You need to identify two different websites/portals (from two different competing companies) that deal with the same type of functions for the same type of target users e.g. selling technology product, retail, wholesale, services, and so on.

GROUP TOPIC APPROVED BY THE INSTRUCTOR:
TOPIC (Approved by the instructor): Zappos.com and Famous Footwear. http://www.zappos.com/ http://www.famousfootwear.com/

Your task is to compare the design of both sites regarding their usability and usefulness. In doing so, you will need to do the following:
(a) Task Analysis:
Conduct a functional task analysis of the two sites – i.e. create a three-level hierarchical diagram for each site that shows what high-level tasks or functions the site is designed to support from the user’s perspective, along with main subtasks.
[Example: homepage, webpages accessible directly from the homepage, other webpages.
(b) Usability Analysis:
Applying the usability inspection methods (i.e. cognitive walkthrough – http://www.usabilityfirst.com/usabilitymethods/cognitive-walkthroughs/ , and heuristic evaluation – http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usabilityheuristics/ ), analyze the two sites regarding usability for one or two key user functions. Use the same high-level
task or function (e.g. searching for information about various products) for analyzing both sites so you can do a valid comparison In doing this be sure to indicate what tasks you used, include the data you collected (e.g. heuristic violations recorded for the heuristic method, logs of your cognitive walkthroughs) and summarize your data in order to compare the sites regarding usability. You might use graphs, tables and screen shots of some selected screens from both sites to help compare.
(c) Usefulness:
Consider ways to compare the sites in terms of their usefulness. [see www.thyseo.com/usefulness.html] Develop a way to analyze how useful the sites might be in terms of their content and helping users achieve the tasks they are designed. You can create your own categories or criteria for helping to assess how useful the sites might be to end users, however provide some justification for your approach to assessing usefulness of the site.
Format:
Write the assignment in the style of a consulting report consisting of the following sections:
1. Executive summary –
One paragraph (10-15 lines) summarizing your assignment.
2. Background and Introduction –
Describe your objectives, and a brief background to the two sites.

3. Methods –
Summarize what methods you are using (including what criteria you use for conducting usability inspection and
analysis of usefulness)
4. Results –
Include data collected (e.g. forms containing results from heuristic evaluation or logs from cognitive walkthroughs,
screen dumps of selected screens, and so on.)5. Discussion –
Compare the sites in terms of (a) their usability, and (b) their usefulness. Include suggestions for improving the
sites (in terms of usability or usefulness) based on your analyses. Which site was better overall regarding usability
and usefulness, and why? Were there any capabilities or functions you felt were missing?
6. References –
Do not forget to provide at least 5-10 scholarly references supporting your methodology, analysis, and recommendations.
Everything should be bundled together in one MS Word document labeled with your group’s number.
(BUSI323_Group#.docx)
4 PAGES PLUS REFERENCES

QUESTION 2
Part 2 – PowerPoint Presentation
Prepare a PowerPoint group presentation of your report. The presentation needs to be structured the same way as the report.
NOTE –When you hand in the assignment, indicate the name and student number of the group members on the title page.
Suggestions:
As you do this assignment, I suggest that you start by reviewing Nielsen’s heuristics [see above] and deciding which of
these heuristics are appropriate for evaluating the web-based system you have chosen. You will also need to think about
how many heuristics you wish to use. More than 10 are likely to be hard to remember and less than 5 will probably not
provide the detail you need.
If possible, you could explore the effect of having more than one expert evaluator – for example, you could work on developing the heuristics with another group member, then you could each do your own evaluation and compare the results that you obtain. Do you both identify the same problems? Drawing up a table to compare the two will enable you to understand the benefits and limitations of each within the context of evaluating the web-based system. You may want to look to see what other researchers are using when performing their comparisons by searching www.hcibib.org, the ACM digital library, or the web for other research papers.

2 PAGES OR 6 SLIDES POWER POINT.
Part 2 – PowerPoint Presentation

Prepare a PowerPoint group presentation of your report. The presentation needs to be structured the same way as the report.

NOTE –When you hand in the assignment, indicate the name and student number of the group members on the title page.

Suggestions:

As you do this assignment, I suggest that you start by reviewing Nielsen’s heuristics [see above] and deciding which of these heuristics are appropriate for evaluating the web-based system you have chosen. You will also need to think about how many heuristics you wish to use. More than 10 are likely to be hard to remember and less than 5 will probably not provide the detail you need.

If possible, you could explore the effect of having more than one expert evaluator – for example, you could work on developing the heuristics with another group member, then you could each do your own evaluation and compare the results that you obtain. Do you both identify the same problems? Drawing up a table to compare the two will enable you to understand the benefits and limitations of each within the context of evaluating the web-based system. You may want to look to see what other researchers are using when performing their comparisons by searching www.hcibib.org, the ACM digital library, or the web for other research papers.
Break down of who is writing what:

TOPIC (Approved by the instructor): Zappos.com and Famous Footwear. http://www.zappos.com/ http://www.famousfootwear.com/
1. Executive Summary: Summarize Assignment 1 paragraph – Divya (write this last)
2. Background & Intro: Objectives- Divyana
3. Background Site A – Divyana
4. Background Site B – Divyana
5. Methods: Usability Inspection – MICKEY
6. Analysis of Usefulness – MICKEY
7. Results: Heuristic Evaluation – MICKEY
8. Cognitive Walkthroughs – MICKEY
9. Screen Dumps – MICKEY
10. Discussion: Usability – Team notes (Stacey to compile)
11. Usefulness – Stacey P.
12. Improvements – Stacey P.
13. Best Overall – Stacey P.
14. Missing Functions – Stacey P.
15. Conclusion – Divyana

I can format everything, including the references however please make sure you send the citations in APA format. See attached DOC with the draft. Thanks,

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