Purpose of Research

In preparation for my independent study course, I read The Design of Sites over the summer. The book emphasized a customer-centered design which means you must "know your customers" and develop a website completely focused on the target audience.

• Design - In this step, the designer considers business goals and develops design concepts.
• Prototype - The designer develops artifacts to llustrate how the site will accomplish the goals set in the design step.
• Evaluate - The designer assesses the prototypes created to see if the desired goals are met.

The purpose of my research was to collect data from students and teachers and get a basic idea of what I should focus my efforts on. In a way, you can think that by surveying students and compiling the results, I completed one cycle on the iterative design process. I will repeat the process several times before I launch the finished product.

By surveying students and teachers, I was able to quantify their interests in a school-networking website. These findings will help me create website features that teachers and students find to be the most useful.