Understanding student needs from a student portal and identifying pain points with the existing portal
Interview & usability testing - Melbourne, Australia
Background
I was engaged by Nomat to undertake research to understand student needs from a portal for a TAFE (Technical and Further Education) in Melbourne and to identify pain points with the existing student portal. The interviews and usability testing were conducted remotely via Zoom with 9 students between the 24th of September and the 2nd of October 2020.
Research approach
The sessions were conducted with 9 participants via Zoom with 2 user types (existing and new students) with a mix of courses, levels across the institution, ages (from school leavers to mature age students), and nationalities (domestic and international students). Before the interviews participants completed a pre-work task to prime them for the discussion. They completed a mind map about their relationship with the TAFE.
Research objectives
- Define student needs from a portal
- Identify pain points with the existing portal
Research questions
- How do existing students currently use the student portal?
- What are they trying to do?
- What are they actually doing?
- How are they doing that?
- What are the pain points?
- Can they enroll in a course efficiently & effectively?
Methods
- Interview
- Usability testing
Impact
The study highlighted some main opportunities to improve the current portal:
- Students are undertaking a study to [need]. Therefore, the [subtopic] is not a primary focus as they mostly only use it for “basic” processes. However, they expect to achieve those tasks efficiently with minimum assistance. Further, [need] and [need] are critical, especially for anything that they need to act on or to be aware of.
- Some participants stopped at one point and ended up calling for help as
they found issues with the [paint point], [paint point], [pain point]. Further, the biggest usability issue was found in [paint point]. - Poor feedback after [subtopic] and the lack of clarity about the next steps caused issues for students.
- [pain point] is a hassle for busy students with jobs or children as they need to plan ahead to fit in their schedule.
- [items] are considered inconsistent, ambiguous, or irrelevant. Although the problems didn’t stop users from finishing the tasks, they’re still worth solving to improve efficiency.
The study revealed some opportunities, both high level & tactical, to improve the current portal. However, due to confidentiality reasons, I can’t show the insights and opportunities here. Feel free to contact me if you want to get to know more about this project.
