The Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association, Essay Example

The following assessment of the Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association (WRDA) website seeks to provide a Usability Report that can best identify the inefficient features of the site.  Features such as the color scheme, ease of website navigation, and overall functionality are assessed to enhance the site’s ability to maintain records and important state documents. The main target audience of the Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association entails state residence seeking to access vital data such as property rights information, birth certificates, marriage certificates, land developers, as well as county tax assessors. The Usability Report analysis seeks to identify the paths towards website improvements. Suggestions for modernizing the website architecture are considered as well as methods that can be put in place to improve the site’s overall visual appeal, improving issues with the font style and backgrounds to make them more aesthetically appealing. Other aspects of the website functionality are considered such as the potential benefits of restructuring navigation tab reducing webpage uniformity and fixing broken links. In assessing website architecture compared to industry standards a similar competitor site is evaluated for a frame of reference. Key functions of industry standard websites are reviewed that can demonstrate whether WRDA’s website is up to date in respect to its features like visual appeal, navigation ease, relevant information, uniformity, and link operations. The following usability report, will conclude by providing a list of priority recommendations for website improvement, breaking all potential efficiency modifications into categories that can easily be implemented to update the website as needed. Some of the suspected  categories for overall improvement include modifications that can made to restructure, or redefine, the site’s color scheme, changes that can be implemented to help maintain the sites consistency like revolving tab names, and new additions that can help to increase link operations for the website. Some additional aspects of the site that need to be reviewed involve the inbound and outbound links. The credibility of exterior sites associated with WRDA’s website play a substantial role in its perceived value to the user. For example, if a website’s outbound links lead to sites that are unprofessional it can have a negative impact on how visitor’s perceive the site as a whole. Likewise, the ability to navigate the site through the use of a central home page and search bar are basic features that if not structured correctly could easily reduce the appeal of a website.

Conclusion

In sum, the Usability Report results find that the website could significantly benefit from being updated. Suggestions for modernizing the website architecture includes improving the site’s overall visual appeal, improving issues with the font color and backgrounds to make them more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, enhancing navigation tab reducing webpage uniformity and fixing broken links.  In assessing a similar site, for a frame of reference, it was revealed that WRDA’s website is substantially behind the curve in respect to features like visual appeal, navigation ease, relevant information, uniformity, and link operations. Based on the above usability report, the priority recommendations for website improvement were broken down into three categories, including toning down the site’s color scheme, maintaining the sites consistency through revolving tab names, and increasing link operations. Another finding revealed the website’s outbound links lead to sites that lack uniformity and professionalism and the search bar on the site failed to serve its intended purpose. Through making the above suggested improvements to the site’s functionality, enhanced levels of user satisfaction and convenience can be achieved.