Rice University Website Redesign
Improving search experience for 5,000+ scholars and researchers.
Overview
Rice University’s Fondren Library website hosts an academic search engine that scholars and researchers use to access the university’s database. However, prior to the revision, there were multitude of complaints from the scholars and researchers alike who needs to rely on the library search engine for their work.
Rice University approached us hoping to understand how they could improve their search experience to help their scholars and researchers.
I worked as a UX designer in a team of 3 where I facilitated the overall re-design process from conducting user research to prototyping new prototype while also coordinating between stakeholders and other technical team of Rice University.
We were given 3-month timeframe to be able to devise a new search experience.
Problem Statement
The Rice University library website received a multitude of complaints regarding its search engine from students, scholars, and researchers alike.
During the revision of the Rice University research website, it was revealed that the site had not been updated in nearly 10 years, resulting in several issues such as:
- Outdated Design
- Complicated search UIs that are cluttered with irrelevant data
- Lack of clear labels, icons, and tooltips to guide users
This in turn had the following observed effects on the targeted user (students, scholars, and researchers of Rice University):
- Longer search period, leading to frustration
- Difficulty finding relevant research data
- Finding the wrong information
- Difficulty making academic citations
As a result, many users gravitated towards manually seeking help by calling the library technicians or services instead of relying on the provided information on the website to resolve their issues. This led to a significant influx of messages and phone calls being received by the front desk at Rice University.
After consulting with the head of Rice University Library, the goal for the webpage was to redesign the interaction flow alongside the overall UI elements to enable users to easily access academic database information from anywhere, while minimizing the need for manual or personal assistance. This also meant making the site more accessible to a broader range of users.
What Makes a Good Search Experience?
Before diving deep into the problem, one of the first questions that we asked was what makes a good search experience?
Our first dive into this problem was looking into the resources provided by NNGroup when it comes to designing a good search UI (Link can be found here).
The key takeaway is that when users deviate from the intended use of the search engine, it becomes a combination of both front-end and user experience design issues.
Essentially, if users get lost, it’s our responsibility.
Furthermore, we then wanted to see what makes a bad search engine experience as well.
Like many issues in the user interaction flow, when reaching a designated area is hindered by multiple clustered steps, it strongly indicates that the search engine is not performing its job correctly.
With that being said, we wanted to determine whether our current website experiences the same or similar issues.
Understanding the Problem
The first thing that I did was try the website myself to achieve the main purpose of the website: search. I tried to search for a specific keyword pertaining to an academic subject and if I get stuck, I tried to find a different ways to resolve it before reaching out to the library.
As shown in the images above, despite being a search database, the search engine is nowhere to be seen. The pages are clustered with text information with no visual indicators to help with accessibility nor visual guidance.
When I tried out the website, it took me around 20 minutes to fully figure out how the search functionality within the site worked. This sentiment was shared among my peers in the team and we wanted to see if this is also true with other potential users as well.
User Interview
To validate our pain points, we conducted 5 user interviews with individuals from Rice University, including students, faculty, and researchers. We interviewed a range of users, from novices to veteran users of the website, to understand their perspectives on the search engine.
Our findings confirmed our hypothesis, as all 5 users strongly indicated that the search feature was confusing, resulting in prolonged access times for the necessary information they needed. More specific pain points were:
- It took more than 3 steps to actually get to the search engine
- Lack of resources to navigate the website
- Unintuitive information architecture, leading users to get lost in the site
- The site’s convolution with excessive words and lack of proper organization
Understanding the Demographic
With the primary users identified as the ‘Research Persona,’ we developed one of our personas based on researchers within Rice University who frequently interact with the website.
Many users solution to this issue was either to use external database such as Google Scholars to navigate their research related search. We then wanted to see if there is anything from our competitors that we can look into that can help solve our problem at this moment: making search more accessible.
Competitive Analysis
We conducted multiple layer of competitive analysis as we needed and wanted concrete evidence in features that we were about to propose.
While our competitive analysis indicated that the Rice University website contained many of the features needed by users, the primary challenge lay in assessing how easily accessible these features were, specifically, how many clicks it took for users to reach their intended destination.
Since Google Scholar is one of the most commonly is not the most used search engine across the field of research, we wanted to analyze the site as a way to redesign our website.
The simplicity in the design was something we sought to draw inspiration from, as it directs users’ eyes to the most crucial areas within the site.
However, as we were designing a search website for Rice University, we had an additional layer to consider, incorporating brand design and additional features into the site as well.
Wireframe and Focus
My main focus in the design was simple: the search engine. The original website’s onboarding page did not have a dedicated section for the search engine, causing difficulties for many users in finding it. Users had to go through two steps just to reach the page where they could use the search feature.
Talk with the Stakeholders
Prior to designing the search UI, there were couple more mandatory features that the stakeholders wanted us to include. Aside from the main “search bar”, we also needed to include a navigation bar for the following information:
- Service and Request
- Departments
- Floor Information
- Contact
- Visitor Information
- FAQ
These informations had to be mandatorily included within the landing page.
Initial Wireframe
With that being said, in my initial attempt I aimed to place the search engine at the center of the screen, as it seemed logical to position the main feature prominently. I placed other navigation-related features in the right corner. The goal was to draw users’ attention to the search engine, aligning with our client’s input. Additionally, they expressed the need for a designated section where they could include a picture of Rice University for branding purposes.
We designated the grey background area as a potential space for placing images. To provide context, after several iterations, we experimented with placing the images at the top, but it didn’t appear visually appealing.
I took inspiration from Google search engine but we wanted to take extra step forward to make the search even easier: through categorization.
So we did a quick A/B testing of the following two different designs:
The initial testing of the wireframe indicated that users had a much easier experience with the search. The addition of a dedicated section for easily accessing common topics facilitated user interaction, as it relied on recognition than recollection.
But something else was missing. One of the pain points that we discovered during our initial research and observation was lack of visual indicators. Accessibility was a concern posed by my client and it was crucial to figure out a way to include some form of visual indicators in order to make it more noticeable and easier to navigate for users. Several reasons for this came from Rice University’s educational mission of making sites accessible across all users but also from a scholarly mission of making Fondren research database open to all.
Taking in their mission statement into consideration, we had to look into ways to include more visuals.
Future Consideration
Given additional time, my focus would be on enhancing the following elements to create a solution that is both comprehensive and flexible, addressing a wider array of scenarios beyond our current scope. These elements encompass:
- Accessibility Enhancement: Given more time, I would prioritize enhancing accessibility features to ensure that the website is usable by individuals with disabilities. This includes improving keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and color contrast for better readability.
- Content Strategy Refinement: With additional resources, I would invest in refining the content strategy to ensure that information is organized and presented in a clear, user-friendly manner. This involves conducting content audits, defining content priorities, and optimizing content for searchability and relevance.
Conclusion
When designing for an academic institution, the purpose and goals differ from those of a business platform. The primary objective is educational rather than profit-oriented, which means I had to strike a balance between meeting this new goal to satisfy my stakeholders and creating a user-friendly design.
Looking ahead, I believe that some of these academically-oriented design approaches can be useful when it comes to designing accessible technology for all people to use.
Peter Yoo
User Experience Designer
LinkedIn | Portfolio | Get in touch!
