USC Usability case study and redesign
For this final exercise we had to choose a university website, found one user and asked him to answers questions on this website.
I chosen the University of Southern California (USC) website. I asked to a friend to get me her first impression of the website, what she thought about the navigation of the site. I asked her to found the school mascot, if the school offers foreing language instruction for Arabic, and the nearest airport to the school.

She told me that the website look like old and she was totally lost because there are a lots information, several menu, many photos and text. The navigation is very difficult. She don’t found the mascot and if the school offers foreing language instruction. She told me that the nearest airport to the school it’s Los Angeles airport.
One main pain point of this website is the multiple menus. We can see in the main menu that there are nine sections, and each section are lot of possibilities and then text and image. We have too many choices, and ultimately we don’t make any and want quit the website. There is also too much information on the homepage.
I propose to change this point through with a paper prototype.

I reduced the number of sections in the menu to highlight the About, Academics, Admission, Students part. I also added to the menu “Events” to give a younger side. When you click on “About” part you have a drop down section without text and image.
Under the menu, we have a slider that takes the whole width of the screen. In the body of the homepage, we have just two or three actuality with a picture and text.
On the footer, we have information for visit USC, the different center and institutes, global initiative and community.
I enjoyed doing this exercise on a website that already exists and may be able to find solutions for better navigation.
