Hey everyone! It’s Courtney your favorite Data Analyst and I want to take some time and talk to everyone about my favorite classes in undergrad. Being a student athlete and event coordinator for my school took up most of my interests but I did enjoy a couple classes while I was there (and not just gym lol!).
While attending Frostburg State University I majored in Information Systems with a minor in Business Administration. I truly enjoyed most of my major classes ranging from SQL programming to project management. If I had to choose one favorite I would say it was my Human Computer Interaction (HCI) course. It combines both IT and business e-commerce while looking at things, both physically and psychologically from a consumers perspective. We focused on how a consumer might interact with a business website, and learned some tips and tricks on how to make the site more accessible in hopes to make it more profitable.
My favorite project in HCI was a group project where we had to create a business and it could only function in an e-commerce market. We came up with a sports products store similar to Modell’s, but the catch was customers could only shop online. We had to come up with creative ways to not only set up the site, (main menu, navigate pages, etc) but we also needed a way to make sure it was accessible to anyone, including mobile customers (iPad, phone, etc) and consumers with disabilities such as color blindness and deafness. I enjoyed the class because it helped me open my mind to the fact that everyone is a consumer, and everyone deserves an equal right to consume a business’ products and contents regardless of enablement. So to all my e-commerce businesses, web developers and coders out there, THINK OF ALL YOUR CONSUMERS- not just your main target, and you’ll build an amazing site, worthy of everyone’s business.
My group also gauged our website’s effectiveness based on ease of use. We assessed the site by counting number of mouse clicks to complete a task or navigate a page. The group also did a usability study in which we asked some of our friends to visit the site and see if they could use it without prior instruction. The feedback was extremely helpful so we could make necessary updates before making the site live.
Overall HCI peaked my interest in school because of its connection between business and IT. It covered what goes into being a web content manager and a small business owner. I would highly recommend the course to anyone looking to run a business one day. I hope someone found this helpful and everyone responsibly enjoy their long weekend for Memorial Day. Cheers!
-The Analyst
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