Put this week's work into a new folder cs1102\lab5.
The goal in this week's lab is to conduct a critical evaluation of the usability of the ESB's web site: http://www.esb.ie/. An evaluation of its accessibility is not required.
There are numerous resources on the web that might help you. Three are:
These are just starting points; they can kick-start your own thinking. In particular, your evaluation will not score highly if you only do the kinds of things we did in the lecture. Similarly, your evaluation is not just a checklist: it should explain and exemplify.
Remember that a critical evaluation should praise the positive as well as constructively criticise the negative.
Write-up your report as a web page called esbreport.html (all lowercase).
As usual, use the template from lab 1.
Structure your report intelligently, and consider using lists and/or tables to present your
findings. Use hyperlinks to refer to pages in the ESB web site, so that I can verify
your claims. For example, do not write "The home page is...". Instead, you
should write "The <a href="http://www.esb.ie/">home page</a> is...".
Use the following stylesheet: esbstylesheet.css. You can add things to the stylesheet (e.g. if you want to add borders to tables, and the such like). But do not change the margins or the font size.
There is a length restriction. In Firefox, select File > Print Preview and ensure
that, when the preview appears, your document is no more than 3 pages long. Do not edit the
margins or font sizes in esbstylehseet.css in an effort to scale your work either
up or down! (You don't have to describe the whole ESB site. Perhaps you'll
focus on
one part of the site and still find more than
enough things to say.)
Deadline: 1pm, Tuesday 20th November.
To submit, you must zip your lab5 folder, like you
did for lab 4. This will create lab5.zip,
and it is this (not lab5) that you must submit.
Choose LAB5 when prompted.
There's no challenge exercise this week because the main exercise is so open-ended.