Generally the Project 3 drafts I looked at had many good qualities. I was impressed. The approach to presentation, layout, and the general sense of designerliness just gets better and better. The essence of design, however, is iteration -- working, testing, improving. With this in mind I will set out some hints -- some more significant than others -- to help you to refine your projects.
Always use the project brief (and these hints) as a "checklist" to guide you, ensure that you are including all required project aspects.
Layout
Include page numbers in your document.
Don't photograph screenshots, instead capture them with screenshot software (e.g. Jing, free from http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/) for better legibility.
Content
You may use one of your individual projects as a starting point and choose another site of a similar type to compare to. However, if you were your own subject in the individual project then you will need to have at least one, preferably two, other users who are not members of your group to do the usability study of the two sites as well.
Overall the "framing" of your projects looks good, as do the studies themselves. There are, however, some areas that would benefit from further development:
Background
Include information about the two sites' history, corporate value (share price and/or market capitalization), number of subscribers, etc. -- something to give a sense of the relative importance of each.
Case Study
I am the hypothetical client for your research into these websites. As such I need to understand that your research was rigorous and not arbitrary so I can trust your results. To do that I need to know what process you followed and what methods you employed.
The Process section sets out how you went about doing the study. What sites did you choose? Why? Who were the subjects? What is their demographic background (age? techy or novice users? etc.). How long did the studies take?
The Method sections sets out the tools or protocols you used in the study. In this case these are the usability testing resources Steve Krug presents on his website, linked to earlier. You need to detail how you applied the six stages of a usability study (as set out in the Krug book on pages 125 - 141) and use this as a framework for presenting your findings.
The Findings are, well, what you found. This could include a video (or clips) of the sessions and/or a list of the steps under-taken in order to accomplish the chosen task.
The Case Study Conclusions (or Summary) presents the performance of the two websites in the study in a comparative way, e.g. through a table.
Design Recommendations
Here you propose, for each website, ways in which it might be improved. You can do this in words and, preferably, also with a paper prototype (e.g. mock up) of how the site can be improved. Make this meaningful -- it's the true point of the study.
Conclusions
In this section you will reiterate the purpose of the project (i.e. to analytically compare the performance of two websites of a similar type from a user point of view when seeking to accomplish the same specific task). You will recount the stages you went through in the project and then draw conclusions and cite the rationale used in reaching those conclusions.
A very good, but not yet perfect, example:
Click to download a PDF of the full project and review it in terms of the comments below. Then look at your own project and note down what needs to be added, changed, or improved.
My thoughts on this draft project:
Good general, consistent layout
"Break up" paragraph on page 1 -- too long
Background needs more specific detail on the business as a business, e.g. number of subscribers/users, company value, etc.
Pull forward content on pages 17 and 18, to before Findings in Case Study, and articulate a clear Process and Methods section (as set out above).
I might incorporate the overview of the site process with mapping (page 3) in the Conclusion of the Case Study.
VERY GOOD step-by-step review of what is required to complete the task.
Case study conclusions on page 16 are excellent -- good comparative study.
Paper prototypes for Design Recommendation on pages 21 and 22 are very good.
Some of the sections and sub-sections at the end are slightly out of order. Reorder based on outline and notes above to "tell the story" in the clearest way possible.
Good luck!
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