Date of Completion

Spring 5-1-2015

Thesis Advisor(s)

Brian Daley

Honors Major

Individualized Major

Disciplines

Advertising and Promotion Management | Anthropology | Art and Design | Art Practice | Arts Management | Behavioral Neurobiology | Cognition and Perception | Cognitive Neuroscience | Cognitive Psychology | Communication | Communication Technology and New Media | Computational Neuroscience | Computer and Systems Architecture | Computer Engineering | Computer Sciences | Databases and Information Systems | Digital Communications and Networking | Digital Humanities | E-Commerce | Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations | Ergonomics | Graphic Communications | Graphic Design | Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology | Illustration | Industrial and Product Design | Industrial Engineering | Industrial Technology | Management Information Systems | Marketing | Neuroscience and Neurobiology | Operational Research | Other Arts and Humanities | Other Engineering | Other Neuroscience and Neurobiology | Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering | Programming Languages and Compilers | Psychology | Science and Technology Studies | Sociology | Software Engineering | Systems Architecture | Systems Engineering | Systems Neuroscience

Abstract

This thesis is a culmination of my individualized major in Human-Computer Interaction. As such, it showcases my knowledge of design, computer engineering, user-experience research, and puts into practice my background in psychology, com- munications, and neuroscience.

I provided full-service design and development for a web application to be used by the Digital Media and Design Department and their students.This process involved several iterations of user-experience research, testing, concepting, branding and strategy, ideation, and design. It lead to two products.

The first product is full-scale development and optimization of the web appli- cation.The web application adheres to best practices. It was built to be responsive, SEO-friendly, accessible, and it utilizes current methods for web development.

The second product is this accompanying thesis document outlining the his- tory of user-experience design, as well as current research in user-experience design and user-interface design (psychologically and historically-based), supporting my rea- soning and process.

In addition to these final documents, there were several “process-based” markers of my work, including a thesis timeline and process outline., traditional doc- umentation of my UX process, the results and analysis for my testing, and images and descriptions of the final web app.These accompanying documents are included with my final thesis.

Throughout the process of creating these products, I provide a comprehensive overview of today’s standards for a user-experience focused web design and devel- opment process. My work aptly represents the knowledge I’ve gained throughout the past four years of study in the UConn Individualized major program.The process outlined in this thesis project is typical in a user-experience, design, or development career, and will be an asset as I enter the work force in this field.

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