A quality assurance process is in place for on-going review of content by SURWEB staff.  In addition to the quality assurance evaluations for individual media shows and learning segments, SURWEB evaluates the effectiveness of its interface and re-designed the site in response to user feedback.  Feedback is gathered through professional development workshops, from the on-line Guest Book, and from the SURWEB advisory board, a body of stakeholders that provides on-going support to the project and meets face-to-face on an annual basis.

In addition, a focus group was convened at Utah Valley State College in Provo, Utah in January/February 1999 to specifically address the “look and feel” of the SURWEB interface and instructional design (Stubbs, 1999a).  Selected focus group members are experts in instructional web design from various sectors of the community, including education, business, and industry.  For example, participants included an instructional design professor from Southern Utah University, a curriculum designer from Brigham Young University’s Media Services; a user interface critic from Novell, members of the McKintich Design team, technology coordinators from both rural and urban sites, and the SURWEB professional development coordinator (Spendlove, 2000).

The focus group recommendations formed the foundation of a comprehensive overhaul of the user interface in 1999.  The site was re-designed for ease of use, simplicity and to add features of relevance to school improvement, such as model curriculum designed by teachers that linked standards, tasks and assessments.  A report of the focus group results and critique are located in Appendix E: Reports Related to SURWEB Interface Design. (Stubbs, 1999). 

The SURWEB interface design overhaul was completed in August-October 1999.  Since that time, user sessions have continued to climb and calls to the SURWEB help desk have gone down. SURWEB continues to conduct routine repairs, upgrades and refinement of interface and database features based on responsiveness to user feedback.  Design features and guest book comments can be seen on-line on the SURWEB site (www.surweb.org).