Sonoma County Folk Society Student Testing

Participants

Participant list order is not reflected in the order of the answers in the survey feedback section.

All class mates, who were assigned testing of our site, responded.

Many thanks to:

Larry Roberts - Filipino American National Historical Society
Randy Jaillet - Filipino American National Historical Society
Barbara Vallauri - Saturday Afternoon Club
Jerilynn Johnson - Legal Aid of Sonoma County
Jessica Bobier - Saturday Afternoon Club
Antonio Ventura - Filipino American National Historical Society
Al Shanto - Legal Aid of Sonoma County
Jennifer James - Global Leadership


Target Market

The site is geared toward both amateur and professional musicians as well as all lovers of Folk Music. The goal is to educate and connect the website's visitors with each other and events in the community.


Part I - System Stats

Result Summary

A wide variety of systems and connection speeds were used in testing our site. We had excellent results and no reponses that found unexpected problems

Computer Monitor size Monitor colors OS Browser Internet
PC 24 inch 1920x1200 32m Vista Ultimate x64 MSIE v7 DSL
PC 17 inch (1024 x 768px) Highest - 32 bit Windows XP Internet Explorer 7 Cable Modem
Laptop 1280 x 800 32-bit Windows XP Google Chrome 1, Firefox 2 Corporate Broadband
PC 21 inch 24-bit Win Vista Firefox 3.0.1 satellite 512k
PC 17 inch 32-bit Vista Ultimate Firefox 3.0.1 DSL
PC 17 inch millions Windows XP IE7 Cable - Comcast
PC 17 inch millions Windows XP Home IE7 Dialup
Mac Laptop 15 inch millions Mac OSX Firefox (recent version) DSL


Part II - Basic Purpose

Basic Purpose Survey Result & Follow Up Summary

Respondents found navigation easy. The site succeeded in its goal to provide easy access to information regarding its mission and about the local Folk music scene. The viewability of the calendar came up and was addressed immediately by our designer. This improvement led to many viewability improvements across the entire site.

Name an upcoming event for the SOCOFOSO?

Hot Frittatas, at Healdsburg Plaza, Celebrate Healdsburg, Noon to 1 p.m. - Didn't think to check the calendar, I was looking for "Events", but I eventually found it

Kate Wolf Memorial Festival at Black Oak Ranch, 5 miles north of Layton Ville, California

Hot Frittatas on May 9. I went directly to the calendar page and found it easily. However, the numbering of the days was a little confusing for a moment. I didn't know they were days at first, and because they are vertical-aligned center in their cells, it's difficult to tell which event they match up with.

Kate Wolf Memorial Festival Black Oak Ranch, 5 mi north of Layton Ville, California

Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble april 2009

Hot Frittatas, May 9th

Sonoma County Bluegrass & Folk Festival

What type of group is the Sonoma County Folk Society?

"an all volunteer organization" - easy to find on the "About" page

The Sonoma County Folk Society is an all volunteer organization that puts on the Sonoma County Bluegrass and Folk Festival in March. They also produce local concerts for musical groups passing through the area and provides informaion on the local folk music scene.

An all volunteer organization. I found this easily via the "About" page.

An all volunteer organization.

A non-profit volunteer organization which provides acces to the Sonoma county Folk Music scene.

Where on the site would you go if you wished to join a jam session?

Community > Jams⁄Dances - this one took a few tries, I looked a couple of other places first

Community > Jams & Dances. I didn't find this immediately but looked to "Contact Us" first.

The Community section

Community > Jams and Dances

Community > Jams & Dances

Community > Jams & Dances

Jams & Dances page

Where on the site can you listen to music?

"Look & Listen" > Music, this one was easy

Look & Listen > Music. I found this easily. The flash players are great by the way.

Look and Listen section

Look & Listen > Music

Look & Listen > Music

Look & Listen > Music

The Music page, either under the Look & Listen link or via the Music link at the bottom of the page.


Part III - User Experience

User Experience Survey Result & Follow Up Summary

Response to the colors and design were very complimentary. People appreciated the subdued color scheme and simple, intuitive navigation. There were some comments about the small font and viewability of some sections. These were addressed as best as possible while staying within the confines of the requirements and wishes of the client.

What is the overall tone and feel of the site?

Friendly, calm, inviting

Casual, folksy, laid back, comfortable.

The overall tone and feel of the site is very calming with the use of the sage green color. It is very subtle and not in your face like some sites.

Soft structure, presents the content very nicely.

Warm

Professional, fun, very inviting

Very accessible. I like the green color theme. Navigation is simple and useful. Easy to find out a lot of information.

What is the site about?

A volunteer organization that supports Bluegrass and Folk festivals and music in Sonoma County, mainly to play music, listen to music, etc.

It gives lots of information about the group, ways to listen to their music, ways to see them perform, or ways to join yourself.

A non-profit organization focused on folk music.

The site is about providing people with information on the local folk music scene.

About the organization, its members and their music.

Sonoma music volunteer bluegrass and folk festival music

Providing access to Sonoma County Folk Music scene

Getting people involved in the folk society, where to go to find music.

What was your first impression of the opening screen?

Nice colors, home page is not too long and gives a short overview of the site.

Peaceful colors and liked the collage at the top of the page.

Nice. I like the graduated look of the nav buttons and the shade of green is nice. I love the SoCoFoSo emblem in the bottom left.

I thought the site was laid out very nicely with the simple nav bar on the left side and on the bottom as well. I thought the use of the colors meshed nicely with the logo on the top and the montage of singers right beneath it.

Very well designed and interesting

Simple and frienly

Very friendly and inviting

Nice colors, soft & welcoming.

Where did you first click?

Calendar, to see what events are coming up.

I had read your email about the music players, so I went to check them out. . . They seem to work fine on my computer!

"About" just to learn more about what I'm testing.

I first clicked on the About Us section

Community > Jams and Dances

About

Calendar

About

Did you find the site easy to navigate?

Not really, the flyout menus do not work, and I could not get the mouse to go over the submenu section.

Yes, no problems

Yes, very easy. Clean and simple, and the navigation makes sense. I like that it's all in one place rather than having confusing links and colors all over the place like some sites.

The site was very easy to navigate since the nav bar was pretty self-explanatory in telling where to go and what I'd find there.

Yes

Yes

Yes, navigation is simple and consistent on every page

Very easy. The link labels are self-explanatory. Not too many layers to wade through.

Were the pages interesting? Why or why not?

Liked the videos, music, since I like folk music.

Yes, if you are interested in folk music

Somewhat. The color scheme and layout is appealing, but there isn't much on the pages to break up the monotony of the text.

The pages where very interesting, especially reading up on the local events to see if there was anything there that might interest me. I am not too familiar with the folk scene so it was interesting in reading up on what this organization is about.

Yes, because this is an interesting organization of musicians, and the site talks about them, provides samples of their music and links to their individual websites.

If you are into folk music could be interesting

Yes, I think the images along the top of the page were a very good choice and make the pages interesting

Very. Lots of information. Plus I like bluegrass music and I didn't know the Folk Society existed. . .

What did you like best about the site?

The colors and layout are very nice.

The left and right sidebar columns. I like the layout and design of them. However. . .

I like the use of colors which were both simplistic and eye-appealing. I also like the use of the same header for each of the pages. It made the site very consistent.

The design

The images along the top

Nothing that you haven't already addressed in your e-mail. I really like the site

The colors.

What suggestions for improvement do you have?

The Times Roman (Serif) font is very hard to read, perhaps because it is very small (Serif fonts are good for printing, but notoriously bad for Webpages). Also, I need more contrast on the text and background. I wear glasses, and yes, I am older.

. . . I think there is a bit too much center alignment in them. I would recommend especially in the right column left-aligning the content-maybe even justifying the text.

None

On the Photo Gallery section, I didn't like how the text for each picture wrapped around the picture. It made it very hard to read. It would be great if they were just blocks of text below each picture.

None

More graphics.

I'm on dialup so I can't get to the music or videos. But that's *my* problem.

Were there any links that did not work, images that did not load, typos?

The flyout menus do not work, and I could not get the mouse to go over the submenu section

On the Folknotes page - It's instead of what I think should be It's in the title - A Big Festival Greeting From Our President, Steve Delap: It's getting to be a habit...

No

I didn't notice any errors.

No

Everything works fine

Not that I found

Didn't notice any.

Could you find the online information to join the organization?

Yes, on the About page.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

I had to hunt around before I found it on the Contact Us Page. You might want to say on the homepage under "Join us in the fun..." something like, Please refer to our Contact Page to find out more information on how to join the Sonoma County Folk Society.

Yes

Yes

Describe how you found this item.

Figured it was either on the About or Contact page, click first on the about page.

On the contact page under "membership"

Yes, in the Contact Us section.

I looked in "Community" first, then Contact Us.

I hunted around on the homepage and then found it on the Contact Us Page

On the Contact Us page.

Ok

On the contact page

Did you find the calendar, was it easy to read?

Yes, found calendar. Font is way, way too small, and lines are too close together to read easily. (see earlier comments about font size, old eyes - the photos of the singers look about my age.

Easy to find, not as easy to read, all the events are squished together

Yes, it was easily marked on the nav bar on the left hand side. It was easy to read with the months clearly marked at the top of the page.

As I said earlier, I found it a bit difficult to read. The column for days is unlabeled so I wasn't sure what the numbers were at first, and because they are centered vertically in their cells, it's difficult to tell where one day ends and the next begins. Consider dividing each table row somehow, such as with unobtrusive borders?

Easy to find, easy to read, though I wondered why it did not include dates.

Yes

Yes

Found it, liked it. It"s easy to find my way around it.


Part IV - Comments

Great Work, nice site. Very informative. Easy to navigate (once the menu is working) it is layed out nice.

I don't care for the main banner. It looks a bit haphazard, and I think it could use a graphical element besides people.

I think the site looks great! Love the use of colors!

Great job.

could be great if you spend more time doing the survey online and avoid the hard time of rewriting the questions all over again remember we are trying to help the less you can do is making easy for us to help you! No offence is just a comment!

I think the site looks great, you did a wonderful job!

Really well-organized site. It loaded relatively quickly for me, which is a plus on dialup. I miss the music clips & videos. Good job.


Total Survey Result & Follow Up Summary

Overall comments and responses were great. Nevertheless, the designer took close notice of the suggestions and user responses and made minor but impactful adjustments. The designer altered the css behind the calendar table section, greatly adding to its viewability. She also lightened the background color, which, while keeping with the original color theme people liked so much, greatly increased the readibility of the text. The client had specified the font and the dimensions of the pages so changes in response to those comments were not possible. The desinger also created a join button, a join form and added additional call outs to join to the copy. The designer was tireless in perfecting the site and I am sure that there were many additional tweaks to perfect the site according to testing and comments.