Computer Science Department
Donating to Charity with a Dynamic Website
Frank Fearington
This project is the design and construction of a website to be used for donating to a charity group. Research and user studies will be done to determine the most effective interface for eliciting donations towards a charity group, and then the site will be constructed according to this data. The site will consist of a means to update the website in real time, without having to take the site offline, and providing a simpler interface for someone within the charity group, who does not necessarily have a background in computer science, to manage and keep the site up to date. The site will contain a database of current projects that the charity group is working on, with detailed information about each project. The site user will be given the option to donate towards a specific project. The idea behind this, is that providing a reachable financial goal and visible need (and possibly results of the donation) will elicit more donations from users than an interface that does not provide such guidelines as: how much funding is needed and for what, in specific. Once the site is created, usability testing will be done to ensure the interface is easy to use and understand. The site will be hosted online and users will be able to donate to a specific charity group on the website. The focus of the project will be the human computer interaction (HCI) design and ease of use of the site, as well as the online database storing information about ongoing projects through the charity organization.