Usability Case Study: CMU
The final assignment before classes begin!

The Assignment
For our final assignment, we were assigned a usability case study to not only recap concepts learned throughout our pre-work but also to dive into the process of a web or mobile app re-design. This is what we will be doing more of during the program so I was excited to give it a try.
The assignment had us look at a university website of choice. I chose Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The main goals:
- Analyze the site for potential pain-points
- Conduct a usability test to confirm or discover new pain-points
- Design a prototype to resolve one of the major pain-points found

The Process
Usability Testing
Since I am now far away from family and friends back in California, I conducted this assignment remotely using a tool called Loop11. Within the tool, I was able to write out tasks for my user to complete and after, follow-up with them for feedback on their process or the pain-points they may have had encountered.
The tool also allowed me to record my user’s screen and listen to audio as they went through their process. Playing back the video from their interaction allowed me to count clicks and understand the way they processed content on the screen through cursor movements.

Observations: Navigating
At first glance, the navigation of CMU’s site looked to be pretty straight-forward and the architecture of the information seemed to make logical sense. As my user noted, “The site was unremarkable and consistent with what I expected a school’s website to look like.”
Observations: Completing Tasks
Following first impressions, I assigned my user the following three tasks:
- Find CMU’s mascot.
- Find out if CMU offers undergraduate and/or graduate foreign language courses for Arabic.
- Find out which international airport is closest to CMU’s campus.
Task Navigation Results:
- Mascot: Finding the mascot proved to be pretty straight-forward for my user. Seeing that a school’s mascot often goes hand-in-hand with its athletics department, my user seamlessly navigated to the athletics page and found that the Tartan’s Scottie Dog was the school’s official mascot.
- Arabic Courses: Finding out that both undergraduate and graduate programs offer foreign language courses for Arabic was also a breeze. After navigating to the academics page on the home screen, he scrolled down the page to find a breakout of all CMU’s Schools and Colleges. Under the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, he found the Modern Languages department page which concisely presented its course studies, one of them being Arabic.
- International Airport: This task seemed to be a notable pain-point as my user got deeper into finding the answer. The visit landing page did not give you an option to find transportation recommendations on the page itself. It did however, allude to it being nestled under the Maps, Parking and Transportation page in the navigation menu to the right. Once he navigated to the page, he was able to find out that Pittsburgh International Airport is the closest international airport to CMU’s campus.


Notable Pain-point
As I mentioned above, the most notable pain-point we recognized was the inability to clearly find out how to get to CMU if you are coming from out of town.
One thing I will also note was the inconsistency in navigation options. I thought it was a bit redundant to have a navigation heading and also a right-side navigation menu. I like the fact that sub-categories are listed within the menu on the right, but since they are inconsistent to what is offered on the page you chose, it made the information seem disconnected. This right-side navigation menu is featured throughout the entire site, but I thought it was most illogical within the visit page.
The Solution
I decided to redesign the discovery process of this information and restructure the layout to highlight important categories for those who will need to navigate this information.
The changes:
- I added a drop-down menu to each navigation category on the top as the user highlights a category. This allows users to view the categories offered within each page. Prior to this update, you would need to click into a page before knowing what the page contained.
- Once you’re on the visit page, you can view all the information covered in the section to the left. As you scroll through the information below the lovely photos of CMU’s campus, your scroll bar, along with the menu on the left, indicate your place within the information. This gives users feedback on their position within the page.
- Throughout the page, information is clear and category headings have the appropriate weight to show hierarchy.


The Learning
A few things learned during the case study:
- User testing holds the golden ticket to insights you may not see initially when analyzing a product for potential pain-points. It uncovers truths in how a user actually navigates your product and takes away the potential for costly oversights. Its an important part of the process.
- I also loved that this project reiterated how important good design is. It has the power to persuade, excite, and delight or frustrate, anger, and lose key stakeholders.
I am so looking forward to continuing this learning and sharpening my user experience craft with Ironhack and beyond!
