University Usability Report
Boston University website case study for Ironhack Prework
The final practice of the prework before the beginning of the UX/UI bootcamp was a case study of an University website : here Boston University. A friend of mine agreed to play the game and being my guinea pig for this exercise. He has been studying at University in France and is an accustom user to that kind of website.
About Boston University

Boston University is one of the largest independent, nonprofit universities in the USA. The university has more than 3,900 faculty members and nearly 33,000 students. It is one of Boston’s largest employers. It has a good research and sports activities, and implemented some campuses abroad. Let’s say that they have a tons of informations to give on their website. See more about BU on : http://www.bu.edu/
The idea here was to analyse its website to pinpoint the problems and potential experience of friction for users.
Initial observations
It is “pretty clear” and “it seems easy to use” and “fonctional”. The video is maybe too imposing. Aestheticaly it looks “classy and sober”.
7 seconds for the first impressions : nothing that really differs from other university’s websites. It is classic but agreeable.
Usability testing to detect pain points to fix
Ok here, there are some problems, even if the sub categories look pretty clear and well designated . The amount of informations is overwhelming. The risk is really to lose yourself.
“Wait, Am I on the same page?”
As a result of the testing I found out that it was not really intuitive when doing a research on a peculiar topic. You have to go back to the frontpage because the menu on the top is not well enhanced.
The main pain point
The amount of information is overwhelming, that make it not easy to find what you are looking for.
Proposition of changes
It is only at the third research that the user used the search tool however it is on the regular location of a website. So for me one of the solutions could be to highlight this fonction and give less room to the video — that is also too quick and take too much attention.
Prototype

My proposition is to enhance this search tool maybe with colors and in positioning it better. When you pass the mouse by the tool, even without clicking, it grows and makes propositions of keywords for the search. Maybe it could highlight some informations in it that the University is proud of. I got inspired by the website Resident Advisor, where I personally find the fonction pleasant.
What I’ve learned
This a really interesting experience to observe the user. I would have been happy to test the changes proposed but I didn’t get the chance to do so. I like the idea of testing and iterating to find out the best solution and make the experience of navigation more pleasant to the user.
I found out that to be very attentive about the user’s first intuition while testing is a big part of the job.
I also found out that prototyping is not my thing yet and needs a lot of training and experience. It first needs inspiration and a good knowledge of what has been already done. It also needs data and maybe a guideline with the best practices. I have a lot to learn…
