| P4 and P5: Draw up plans to assess the design of the website. | Mr Morgan | | Phillips.Kieran | |

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Purpose
The purpose of this website is to be largely promotional and raise the status of Monmouth and the surrounding areas as a destination for overseas visitors. In achieving this, the website is designed to be informational, educational and to encourage tourists to visit and stay in the area.
Availability and Accessibility
Starting with the basic, yet key aspect of usability, I will be discussing the availability and accessibility of the site. If people try to access the website and it doesn’t work — for whatever reason –the website becomes worthless. An example is server uptime, it’s important to ensure the possible or current visitors don’t get an error trying to load the site therefore it will be wise to invest in good hosting which will be done. Another example is broken links, it is essential to double check that there are no dead links on the site. Another key aspect to consider is Mobile responsiveness, ensuring that the site can handle different screen sizes and slow connections.
Clarity
The second key aspect to usability is clarity. If you distract or confuse your visitors, they will either need more time to find what they came for, or they might forget their initial goal all together. Either way, they will not experience the website as user-friendly or chances are that they will leave dissatisfied and with no intention of coming back.
This is why I have decided that a clear and usable design can be achieved through: * Simplicity – Focusing on what’s important. If you don’t distract your visitors they will be more likely to do what you want them to do. * Familiarity –Sticking to what people already know. There is nothing wrong with looking at other sites for inspiration. * Consistency –Creating a consistent experience across the entire website to keep the visitors mind at ease. * Guidance – Taking the visitors by the hand. By not expecting the visitors to explore the site all on their own, guiding them through the Monnow Voice site and show them what there is to offer. * Direct feedback – Feedback is essential to any interaction. The moment people interact with the site, make sure to offer an indication of success or failure of their actions. * Good information architecture – Understanding your visitors’ mental models and how they would expect you to structure the content on your site is vital.
Learnability
Learnability is another important aspect of usability. The goal is too design intuitive interfaces, interfaces that don’t require instructions, or even a long process of trial and error to figure them out. The key to intuitive design is to make use of what people already know, or create something new that is easy to learn.

Credibility
Credibility is a crucial aspect of any website. Even if people find the content they are looking for, if they don’t trust you, that content is worthless. The website could cause site visitors to be sceptical about the business in any number of ways including whether or not you really exist, your reputation, or the quality of your content.
It is important that people know you are a real company with real people. In the website, offering the “about us” page together with the contact details is very key but simple in achieving this.
Relevancy
Another key aspect to usability is relevancy; this is because it contributes to good website usability. It is not enough that the website is clear; the content must also be relevant. Again, it is essential that you know your users and why they visit the site.
Start with defining who your users are. Second, talk to them to find out what their goals are when visiting your site. Third, define user scenarios that demonstrate in which situation people visit your site to find what kind of content. Any design decision that you make should result in a more user-friendly website for your users. This is a essential to ensuring that the website is suited to the users’ needs.
Monnow Voice Website Design Appeal
Visual appeal can, more than anything, attract attention. This is vital to get the users interested in the website. With the Monnow Voice website, the logo is the first captivating image on the website in the top left. There are also 2 stacked, eye-capturing images of the town centre. Images and colours are very powerful to trigger emotions and convey feelings.
It is important to create a positive first impression to the users. This can affect the relationship between the user and the business. Imagery can express the characteristics of the business; the images used represent the look and feel of the website, and with these have a heart of the town centre feel. This is good to connect the users to the area you represent, and for this with Monnow Voice, it gives Monmouthshire a good representation.
Visual appeal can make your visitors more forgiving for deficits in other areas. This is because it is very difficult to design and build the perfect website. This means that it can be brilliantly designed but there is still room for improvement in other areas.

P5: Evaluation
User Acceptance testing
The users of the site will be the business owners and staff and the customers. Acceptance of the site means that the target customers visit the site and use it its intended purpose, which the business is happy that the site fits in with its overall images of the business and promotes its business objectives and that it works.
In order for the website to meet all of its user’s needs, the website will perform on different browsers and different connectivity.
The images should ideally be GIFs or JPEGs as PNGs can be incompatible with internet explorer. As more people are now accessing the web via WAPs, allows applications to be viewed on a small screen such as mobile phones, it needs to be readable to be aligned with that type accessibility to the website. Connectivity depends on how each user is connected to the internet, this could through a Local Area Network, or a Modem or directly from their computer. Speeds vary so it must be possible for downloading the site through various types of connection without the users becoming frustrated due to lengthy loading times.
Users also have different levels of technical expertise and all of them need to be able to navigate their way around the site.
Accessibility Testing
In this section, it is important to consider how accessible the website is for disabled users. Since the introduction of the Equality Act, websites must be designed to enhance the accessibility for all users including disabled users. It is important to consider users that do have problems with eyesight, for example, in the design in the website so when launched will suit everyone’s needs.
It is said in the Disability Discrimination Act, another important piece of legislation impacting on what is accessible for disabled users on the website, “The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.” The legislation enforces the accessibility rights for the visually impaired and to those that have hearing problems.