University Usability Report

Eszter Szigethy
Sep 1, 2018 · 6 min read

As the last exercise of the Ironhack prework I had to ask a close person to test a website with answering all the questions without leaving the site and without using the web site’s internal search feature.

The goal was to detect the main pain points of the website and propose changes in order to fix one pain point through a paper prototype.

I decided to test the website of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

About the University

The University of Tennessee is a public sun- and land-grant university in Knoxville (one of the state’s largest cities) Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1794, it hosts almost 28,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. University of Tennessee’s ranking in the 2018 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 103. The university helps to manage the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where students and faculty tackle research projects. The University of Tennessee grants graduate degrees through its Graduate School of Business, law school, College of Engineering and College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, as well as a Space Institute, among other academic departments.

Seven seconds to get a FIRST IMPRESSION of the website:

“Between modern and old…Try to be modern, but not really…It’s confusing…”

“There are too many text, not easy to scan through.”

“It’s weird that the main picture of the site shows a man in wheelchair maybe this university is for disabled people?…I don’t know…”

What about THE NAVIGATION?

“For the first look it seems complicated, maybe not so easy to use it.”

“But probably for the people who visit the website regularly maybe it works. If they know what they want they know where to find it.”

FINDING some ELEMENTS on the website

I had to ask the user to find these 3 elements without using the web site’s internal search feature.

  1. The school mascot
  2. If the school offers foreign language instruction for Arabic
  3. The nearest airport to the school

The school mascot

It wasn’t easy to find the mascot of the university. First the user clicked directly on the “Menu” > “Athletics” where there were many pictures but none of them was referring to the mascot.
So he checked clicking on “About”>”Staff Directory” which didn’t show any solution.
Then he kept continuing trying to find it through “About”>”Traditions” where finally using the Ctrl+F combination searching for the word “mascot” he got the result: the mascot of the university is a coonhound, called Smokey.
The only way he found a photo about it was using the website’s internal search feature.

If the school offers foreign language instruction for Arabic

After checking the footer without giving any result, he went to “Menu”>”Global Engagement”>“Center for International Education” where he couldn’t find any reference to the Arabic language.
For the second try he clicked on “Menu”>”Faculty and Staff” but it was useless again.
Before giving up, even if he wasn’t allowed to use, he tried to look for it through the web site’s internal search feature which was difficult to find, cause unlike the usual way it was down in the footer.
With the help of it he found the answer, which is yes, the school offers Arabic language instruction. I was curious how long is the process to find it without using the “search” feature, so I tried to figurate out how this website works. Well, honestly it took quite long time for me to find the solution: “Menu”>“Diversity”>“Arts and Sciences”>”Departments & Programs”>“A to Z Index”>”Asian Studies”>”Language Study”>”Arabic Program”.

The nearest airport to the school

Finding the nearest airport was the biggest challenge for the tester. At the beginning, it was quite obvious that probably he has to click on the map in the header where hopefully he will be able to find the information.
After opening the “MAP” he clicked on “Transit” where he didn’t find any option that was referring to any Airport. Then he was zooming out from the map hoping to find it in that way.
Trying the “Wayfinding” feature he tapped the word airport, but it didn’t show any result.
After trying more options he decided to check clicking by “Menu”>”Students” but he didn’t succeed again.
So the last chance to find the answer was using again the “search” feature of the website that gave many different answers…
That’s why I have decided to check it using Google. I found the answer which is: the closest major airport to University of Tennessee is McGhee Tyson Airport.

The main pain point

As we can see above, the user couldn’t really find the asked elements without using the “search” feature. It shows that the structure of the website is complicated, the navigation is not enough clear. There are too many information with too many navigation bar, that’s the reason why we can even probably feel that it’s a mess. Even if I think it’s an excellent idea that clicking on the logo leads back the user to the home page, the tester sometimes had difficulty with it.

The 3rd task: finding the nearest airport was the most difficult for the user. This proved to be one of the main pain points next to the not well organised structure. That’s why I have decided to suggest a more obvious solution for finding the nearest airport to the university through a redesigned home page with more simple menu arrangement.

Solutions

Instead of having the main navigation bar on the left side, I preferred to change it and put it in the header traditionally in a horizontal way. Like this the user doesn’t have to scroll down every time when he wants to reach the lower parts of the navigation. The content of the main menu bar is the following: “About”/ ”Admission”/ “Academics”/ “Research”/ “Diversity”/ “Outreach”/ “Global Engagement”/ “Athletics”.

In addition I have created a secondary navigation bar, which placed on the right side of the logo, where we can find the “Students”/“Faculty & Staff”/”Alumni & Friends”/ “Parents”/ “Apply”/ “Visit”/ “Give” options. Instead of putting the “search” feature in the footer, I have decided to relocate it in the right corner of the header to make it more accessible and visible.

- Home page with a primary and secondary navigation bars -

Originally when the user clicks on the main navigation bar, a secondary navigation bar appears on the right side, which was quite disturbing. Trying to solve this problem I added a drop down menu connected to the main menu bar (here the user can choose according to the categories from the further options) that can help to the user understanding the structure of the website and making the content clearly.

- Home page with a drop down menu connected to the main menu bar -

Focusing on the problem that my tester faced when he was looking for the nearest airport I found this solution: Clicking on “Visit” in the header bring us more options to choose from between: “Plan your visit”/ “Campus Map”/ “Transportation”/ “Parking”.

- The “Visit” menu in the secondary navigation bar in the header -
- “Transportation” menu option that through the user can find easily the special information that he needs. -

In this way I kept the function of the “map” where the user can get lots of useful information about the campus, but at the same time having a separate menu for “Transportation” allows the user to access more smoothly some details on a specific issue. Under this menu the user getting more information about transport by air, bus, car or train.

- Providing more details to the user how to get to the university by car, rail, plane and bus. -

What did I learn throughout this case study?

After this experience I think without having a well organised structure, a website can not serve usefully. The user feels lost if he can not see in front of himself a clear, systematic content. I think this is one of the most important bases of UX design. Even the site with the most beautiful ui design is worth nothing if it doesn’t work well.

I realised as well, that the users think differently. Therefore the designer always have to find a solution that is obvious and consistent for everyone.

In addition it’s not necessary to change all the time the already used structure to a different one, because sometimes it can confuses the user. It is advisable to apply well proven elements for having a good navigation of the website.

Eszter Szigethy

Written by

I am a Hungarian Graphic Designer in Paris and a UX/UI Design student at Ironhack. http://eszterszigethy.tumblr.com/

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