UX Research Methodologies
Coursework at the School of Information, University of Information
My Role
UX Researcher
Project Client
Graham Institute of Sustainability at the University of Michigan
Duration
14 Weeks - Winter 2022
Team
Go MAPS
(Anshika Saxena, Marco Lang, Pratik Mangtani & Sharadhi Raghuraj)
Skills
Interaction Mapping, User Interviews, Personas, Survey, Competitive Analysis, Usability Testing
Project Overview
As a final deliverable to the client, the team Go Maps submitted a final video to the client describing their process and final findings and recommendations.
Client Introduction
Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan mobilizes the expertise and passion of scholars, partners, and decision-makers to bring world-class research to real-world sustainability challenges. They envision a just and sustainable world where policies and practices are powered by science, collaboration, and creativity. They continually seek guidance from a wide range of stakeholders spanning the business, academic, nonprofit, and government sectors.
The institute participated as our clients for Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation course to seek improvements and recommendations for their newly launched website.
To grasp Graham's new website, we began by creating interaction maps for its major workflows. These maps pinpointed user pain points and provided insights into the Graham Institute's offerings for different user groups.
Interaction Maps
Finding One
The role of Graham is not amplified in the project case studies with their partner organizations.
Personas
Scenarios
.png)
.png)
.png)
We utilized a variety of methodological approaches to carry out the interview process. In an effort to precisely understand the perception, goals, and shortcomings of the Graham Institute, we engaged in five interviews consisting of both stakeholders and users. Our approach consisted of targeting the population, gathering data, and analyzing data.
Comparative Evaluation
Post our comparative analysis, we circulated a survey to the users who were acquainted with Graham. The survey focused on obtaining a better understanding of the website’s use by their users.
Surveys
-
Target population: Students, Partners, and Faculty members
-
Responses received: 60
-
Survey Development: Set of 15 questions published on Qualtrics
-
Pilot questionnaire tested with the client and peers
-
Incentive - Starbucks gift card
.png)
.png)
38%
32%
61%
Of the respondents engage with Graham to get involved in the programs offered by them.
Of the respondents concurred that they often receive information about Graham through various sources.
Of the respondents found the funding for sustainability projects to be the most valuable aspect of working with Graham
Heuristics Evaluation is a type of usability method for finding usability problems in an interface design. We used Neilsen’s heuristics (Nielsen, 1994) for assessing the Graham website. As a team, we analyzed the entire list of heuristics and chose criteria that best suited the interface of Graham’s website to use in our evaluation.
Using the list of heuristics, our team inspected the website. We proceeded to identify and rate the severity of the problems utilizing a scale of 0 to 4; 0 being the positive identification and 4 being the most severe issue that needs to be addressed.
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability Testing
20, Undergraduate student
26, Graduate student
20, Undergraduate student
19, undergraduate student
24, Graduate student
23, Graduate student
“The search icon does not provide desired result”
“I wish I could see part-time employment with Graham.”
“No association of courses with professors are mentioned.”
“I am not able to locate the course page even with search bar.”
“I don’t understand the student offerings from Graham”
“I forget my way to reach a certain option as there are multiple confusing entry points.”
After performing the Heuristic Evaluation, our team moved forward to refine our findings through the method of Usability Evaluation. The first step of this method was to draft a Usability plan report
Target user group: Students
Scenario: You are a student at the University of Michigan who is keen on taking courses in sustainability and is also looking for funding opportunities. Through word of mouth, you came to know about the Graham Institute of Sustainability at the University, which has a great network and also provides resources for courses.
Final Findings & Recommendations
Recommendations
The projects page can have a detailed view card of each project. The information on the cards could include a summary, funders, and team members. The discovery of the information would be quick through this layout and would help the user quickly select the project of interest.
The 'About' page on Graham's website could display the testimonials of the clients. this would help the users, especially the clients to know the success stories of reputed partners associated with Graham.
Conclusion
We studied The Graham Sustainability Institute, assessing needs via interviews, surveys, and comparative analysis. Website usability was evaluated using heuristic evaluation and usability tests. Findings and recommendations were consolidated qualitatively, with a suggestion to validate them quantitatively. Next steps involve prioritizing recommendations, considering the tradeoff between user experience and technical/financial feasibility.
Recommendations
Enhanced engagement opportunities or events for students enabling them to network and learn more about Graham similar to events held by other U of M institutes.
Recommendations
Tunneled navigation paths to other websites such as Atlas and Wolverine could be implemented to help users in locating detailed information.
Simplification of the information architecture with the restructuring of the website to group similar objects together.
Finding Four
Inconsistencies were found with respect to help and support feature provided by the institute.
Recommendations
The users look for quick assistance while they navigate Graham’s website for varied purposes. Include a prominent contact us or support us call to action button to guide users when they require assistance.
We utilized a variety of methodological approaches to carry out the interview process. In an effort to precisely understand the perception, goals, and shortcomings of the Graham Institute, we engaged in five interviews consisting of both stakeholders and users. Our approach consisted of targeting the population, gathering data, and analyzing data.
Interviews
-
The role of the Graham Institute is not amplified in the success stories of their case studies.
-
Users find the information on the website to be overwhelming.
-
Information and the visuals presented on the website might give an impression of being impersonal.
-
Personal outreach has proven to be more effective than automated techniques to expand outreach.
-
User satisfaction based on Graham's expertise, a value-added network, and good reputation.
-
Target User Group
Graham Staff members
A middle-aged woman with years of experience with Graham institute as a staff member who supports the administration of the institute.
Students
Junior student at the University of Michigan studying environmental communications. She also worked with the planet blue Ambassador Program.
Partners of Graham
Female working as a point of contact between the partners and the Graham institute
Finding Two
Getting involved with Graham’s programs is a major reason for engagement by students due to their interest in sustainability. In this regard, personal outreach has proven to be more effective than automated ones.
Shortcomings of the study
A small sample size of participants for all methods used in the study.
Due to time constraints, we could only recruit student participants for the study.
Limited use of quantitative research methods. Apart from surveys, we could not use any other quantitative research methods to confirm our findings.
Could not implement A/B Testing with the old and new versions of the website to confirm findings generated by qualitative methods used in the study.
Confirm our findings with quantitative methods such as log analysis.
01
Implement recommendations generated from this study as a part of the first iteration to understand the impact for further analysis.
02
Conduct A/B tests to validate design decisions implemented on the new website.
03
Next Steps.....
Finding Three
The majority of the users looking to interact with the website are interested in the various programs and courses offered by the Institute. They reported difficulty in locating these courses and the faculty members associated with them since similar task flows had multiple entries points compelling the users to recall their navigation flow.