Shoreline Restoration: Site Report

Shoreline Restoration

Site Report

Purpose

Interest in the subject of shoreline degradation is growing as people begin to understand its consequences. They are finding that lakeshore degradation is directly linked to lake quality, which is directly linked to lakeshore property values. Because of this, there is a growing need for a resource on native plant species for this area. We designed the site to be both an identification guide, and an information source--specific to Beltrami County. The content is designed for the purpose of restoration, both in general and in specific species.

This site provides information about native plants. Our primary expected audience is local property owners who want to improve the ecology of their lakeshore or wetland. Secondarily, we hope to reach anyone interested in native plants. The intent was to build a site geared toward the establishment of native shoreline buffer zones. We expect this site to be useful to both professional and non-professional people. With this in mind, the design theme of our site according to the scheme found in the text (on page 45) is "general reference" because the site is not overly-technical or complex yet covers a broad range of information in a hypertextual rather than narrative fashion.
(Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton. Web Style Guide. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.)

Design

When we first began planning, our concept for the site was much more involved than our finished product turned out to be. Originally, we intended to include:

a considerable amount of "how to" information
extensive external links to sites
technical aspects of shoreline restoration
characteristics of plant species
habitat requirements of plant species

Of these we kept only the last two. There are many sites already available which address the advantages of vegetative restoration and the technological aspects of how to do it. There are also many sites available detailing numerous aspects of a huge number species. What is not readily available is an area-specific guide to species encountered in Beltrami County. Because the main focus of our site was vegetative buffers within Beltrami County, we eventually narrowed the scope of the site to exclude these other aspects of restoration and species not from our area. Because we originally had multiple purposes, our original design was more of a web. Our finished product is hierarchical in design, which suits the categorical limitations of our plant groupings. This aids in steering the user towards specific information.

Our home page introduces the user to the shoreline buffer zone concept and the site's hierarchical design. The navigation we feel is self-explanitory. (For example, the link to the tree category is labeled "Trees." The heading to the links to the species pages is labeled "Some Suggested Trees for Beltrami County Restoration Projects.") Each page on the site is consistent in the following design details:

The navigation bar at the top and bottom
The site banner
An appropriate picture for each category and plant species
A second-level header stating the category or species discussed

In addition, each species page contains:

species identification information
brief text introducing each plant
a table of plant characteristics
a table of habitat requirements
links to "previous" and "next" species within each category

This design is intended to construct site identity and make it difficult to get lost within the site. The tabular information is consistent between the species pages while allowing for flexibility within the data for individual species.

We feel we have created a clear design that guides people easily to information. We have intentionally kept our sight free of sidebars and complex page layouts for the purpose of clarity and ease of use, which is important for many homeowners who may be unaccustomed to using computers. Also, the images are an important design component and aid in awareness of where the user is within the site as well as helping with species selection and recognition.

Design and Text Composition Decisions

We worked collaboratively with the constant goals of simplicity and ease of use. Text needed to be brief, but cover sufficient ground to allow the user to evaluate a given species. We also wanted the text to convey basic, non-technical, restoration-oriented information. We did this by focusing our introductory texts to information relative to restoration. Furthermore, to give a more full impression of the characteristics of each plant, we included some interesting culturally-oriented information such as medicinal uses, definitions of latin names, historical information, etc. We attempted to keep our tone friendly but concise. Much of the information is tabular, which allows for a wide range of information that is easily accessible.

Some Problems yet Unresolved:

Organizing links to species page by scientific name as well as by common name. No professional would ever look under common name. This will be important once the number of species increases.
The banner is a bit too dark. It may have been better to put the text on the white part of the fade. It looked fine in the classroom, but when viewed elsewhere, where monitor settings were apparently darker, the text was not as easy to read. This problem was of a lower priority and has not yet been fixed.
Lining up the width of the banner and the navigation bar. At present these are placed in separate cells. Occasionally a particular browser does not line them up correctly, making the site look sloppy. In retrospect, it would probably have been better design to have put both the banner and the top navigation bar in the same cell.
Lack of identification of the images. Those on the species pages can be reasonably expected to be the featured species. However, those on the category and home pages needed to be identified. We could have done this easily if we had kept the picture and text in separate cells, but then we could not have wrapped the text to the pictures. We wanted the text to take up the least amount of vertical space possible, therefore we needed it to wrap. We did attempt to label the pictures in Photoshop, but did not like the result. The problem remains unresolved, but not unnoticed. We will eventually find a suitable method of labeling them.
Ambiguous "Next" link. It was pointed out by a classmate that, in the species page, the "previous" and "next" links are a little confusing in that it's unclear whether the next thing will be more information about this plant or something else altogether. This can easily be resolved by changing the link to "Next Species" or "Next Plant." When a spare fifteen minutes can be found, this will be changed.
Need for FAQ page. Despite the fact that we haven't had any questions, much less any frequent ones, we should add such a page to solve the problem of people searching for terms or issues rather than specific plants. This is discussed more below in the "Usability Test" section.

Links to and reviews of sibling sites

http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/index.html

I like the breakdown into categories. There are a lot of plants and it eliminates a lot searching time. Search engines are nice on large sites, but not applicable to ours. Link lists are alphabetical only by scientific name, good for professionals, bad for laymen, but at the same time, more precise. Information is extremely detailed, again, good for professionals, bad for laymen, but very comprehensive. The information is also referenced, good for professionals, maybe good for laymen. If you just want to know a little something about a plant you wish to grow, this site is a lot of reading and sifting. There are no photos, laymen often identify plants by photos.

http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/

This is an extremely comprehensive site. However, it is well set up and narrows the fields down fast. I do find it irritating when plants are listed which have no species page available. I would wait to put them in the link list until they had a link to go to. Photos are very nice and information is extensive. The side bar allows quick location of the type of information you might be looking for.

http://plants.usda.gov/

This is an extremely large site and would be impossible without a search engine. When the information on a species is available it is good and comprehensive, but sometimes little information is posted to a species. It would be nice to know that the same level of information would be available on each species. The list simply grew faster than the support information could be added. Photographs are sometimes good, sometimes not and sometimes only line drawings. Sometimes the species information is extensive and you can spend a lot of time sifting through it to find what you want to know.

http://www.nearctica.com/flowers/brassic/Bincana.htm

This site is basically an On-line guide to verify plant identification. Additional information is often very little. If a person is going to remember a plant, they need to know something interesting about it. Otherwise, there are so many plants; they all tend to assume similar identities. Once you have identified your plant, you must then go elsewhere for additional information.

Activity Detail

Carl and Anita worked as a team on all design and layout questions. We independently addressed each question, compared results, and settled on a compromise answer. We came from differing approaches. Carl is not a botanist, nor does he work on shorelines. Anita is a botanist and a professional lakeshore restorationist. Anita's computer skills are basic, Carl's are more advanced. We feel that this situation made for a good system of checks and balances on the usability of the finished site. Anita supplied all textual information. Both Anita and Carl reworked the text to keep it clear, concise, and cohesive. After agreeing on the design layout, Carl created the templates in Dream Weaver and dropped the text and photographs into the appropriate cells. Text was then reworked again to create the visual cohesion and balance we wanted to see. We worked together to create this site report. Anita mainly provided the drafts, revision and proofreading was mostly Carl's work.

Usability Testing

We asked three questions of several people to test the usability of our navigation scheme. The subjects were totally unfamiliar with our site and unfamiliar with vegetative restoration or with shoreline plants in general.

The questions were:

1) Can you find some flowers that would be suitable to add to your partly-shaded lakeshore buffer?

2) You are thinking about buying some lakeshore property that is badly eroded. You wish to do something about returning it to its natural state. Can you find some information on that?

3) Can you determine if Big Bluestem (a grass) will grow in the sandy soil on your lakeshore property?

Test subjects had a range of computer skills; some had almost none. However, none of our test subjects seemed to have any difficulty finding the appropriate information for questions one and three. For question two the users had to browse through text on the category pages, and this was hard to find. This was somewhat expected since our page is organized by species and not by techniques. Because this site is designed to browse through plants individually and is not otherwise indexed, some users may have to wade through much information they don't need. We believe that this is a necessary inconvenience for the few who come looking for a specific piece of technical information and have no background knowledge of plants. This can be addressed in the future by including a FAQ page, or an index of specific issues, such as "erosion," cross-referenced to the species pages.

We had assumed that our navigation scheme was self explanatory, and the testing generally confirms this. After we had completed our template for the species pages, we did add a "previous" and a "next" link at the bottom of the page to allow a user to browse a plant category. None of our test subjects used these links, but this is because we have only 2-3 species listed per category. Eventually, we expect to have very extensive lists. At that point, we expect the "previous" and "next" links will be more useful. The alternative is to return to the category page to access each species link. So even though the previous and next links were not utilized by the test subjects, we have left them as part of the species pages.

Created for Web Design and Content
final site report