Good Design, Bad Design
Good Design
Summary: WPI has some well developed, easy to use websites for its community. Among these websites is Canvas, which was recently used to replace the old course managing site named BlackBoard. Canvas is significantly easier to use and is much more convenient for students and faculty to keep track of many tasks they have for classes.
Design Reflection: I chose this design because it is a very common platform used among the WPI community everyday for class management. There are many great aspects to the design of this website. For example, when a student logs in to the site, they see the above home page with all of the classes they are taking that term with an option to display the classes they want on the dashboard. They can also see a list of “To Do” items to help them keep on top of their assignments. In addition, there is also a “Coming Up” list in which students can view future assignments to plan ahead. Moreover, there is also a “Recent Feedback” list in which students can view comments from their peers or professors on a specific assignment. Users can also change the color or picture of their course background for easy viewing on their task calendar. Above all, the site is organized making it easier to navigate.
All of these aspects contribute to a convenient way for students and faculty to manage their classes or assignments on Canvas; thus, the site makes people feel they are achieving their best!
Conclusion: Canvas is mainly a task management website for students and a course organizing website for faculty. It is an example of a greatly designed site as it is easy to use, navigate, and customize.
Bad Design
Summary: Although Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has some well developed, easy to use websites for its community, there are also some websites with bad design that we have just adjusted to. Among these websites is Bannerweb, a site for the WPI community in which students can register for courses, view final grades, and pay tuition bills and faculty can post final grades, pay bills, and fill out time sheets among many other features. There are some design bugs and the overall appeal is not great as shown in the pictures below.
Design Reflection: As seen in the pictures, the website’s design has some apparent bugs on the user side. To summarize, when the user picked only the Computer Science category, the option defaulted to picking the Accounting category as well which is not what the user intended.
I chose this design because this website is very important to students and faculty since they use it almost everyday, especially during peak times such as class registration. Moreover, the design is not all that appealing and looks dull as a whole. It is not the best or easiest way for the user to navigate through the site and its features. As a result, it would make someone using the site feel confused or frustrated.
Conclusion: Bannerweb is a commonly used site among the WPI community that is an example of a poor design considering its significant purpose.