The document discusses user studies conducted during the redesign of a university website. It provides examples of different user study methods used, including online surveys that received over 7,000 responses to identify user tasks, guerilla testing using card sorting and whiteboarding to develop taxonomy and page flow, and live testing of visual designs using a hot-spot tool before coding. The summary highlights the main user study methods, tools used for each method, and concludes by noting the importance of engaging users early through qualitative testing.

1. Ask Your Users
Redesigning the Western site with User
Studies

2. Project Overview
Nov 2010 – Sept 2011

3. Quick Project History
• Branding nearly finished by
Marketing before we began
• Nov 2010 project proposal
approved
• Features presented 2/11
• Page Flow (Architecture) presented
5/11
• Design presented 6/11; FAILS!
Re-worked and presented 7/11
• Site delivered 8/29/11

4. Quick Project Structure
• Small volunteer committee from
different areas of campus
• (all volunteer design group)
• One full-time implementer!
• Reported to President’s Council at
end of each deadline

5. Quick Drupal Summary
• Drupal 7
• Hosted at WWU: 2 redundant servers
• 1.5M hits / month
• Using Zend for caching and back-
end monitoring
• Integrated with Google Search
Appliance
• Currently building multi-domain sites
for colleges/depts across campus
(different Drupal 7 instance)

6. Writing the Proposal
• Define Audience (extranet / marketing)
• Define initial Requirements including:
o Goals: create imagery for what this site is to be; why and what
o Platform (Drupal) and Performance requirements
o Define major content areas
o Define what’s NOT included
• Define Timelines & Resources
o Functionality and page flow BEFORE design
o How approval for each stage occurs; who-when-how
• Risk Management: Create a fall-back resource
o Contractor or extra human resources
o More schedule time (hah!)
o Create prioritized requirements – so some can be left out in a crunch
• Drupal theming ended up being done by contractor

7. User Studies
And tools that might be useful

8. When to talk to Users

9. Participation From Our
Users
Date Description Participants
January On-line Survey to determine Tasks 7600
April 1 Design concepts; Taxonomy testing 10
April 8 Layout and Taxonomy testing 5
April 15 Layout and Taxonomy; Card-sorting 21
April 29 Draft Designs 36
May 13 More Designs; Video Interviews 38
May 27 Refinements of Designs; DIY design 38+
July Hotspot Testing (on-line) 600+
August Test environments (comments by email) 30+

10. User Testing: What makes
it Successful?
• Really decide what you’re testing
• What do you need to know – frame it as concretely as possible
• Analytically figure out how to get at the question
• If it doesn’t seem to work, change the test mid-stream – guerilla
testing is FAST and FLUID
• Attracting attention can be hard – be bold!
• Give stuff away – it doesn’t have to be expensive
• Do some stuff that’s just fun – interactive and non-monitored is the
best
• White board magnets
• Video cameras
• Design-your-own page
• Come back and try it a different way another time

11. User Study: On-line
Survey
• Question
o Who are our users; What tasks are they doing
• Study Format
o On-line survey of all users coming through home
page
o Responses: 7500+ in less than a week
• Tool / Cost / Strength
o KISSinsights.com
o free to $30/month (depends on # of
respondents)
o When large sample useful

12. On-line survey
• Who are you?
o Prospective
Student
o Current Faculty /
Staff / Student
o Alumnus or
Community
• What are you looking
for?
• Optional- provide
email address.

13. Survey Results
• 7700 responses
• 1100 external
audience
• Provided an in-
depth view of the
primary
destinations

14. Guerilla User Studies
• Who to use as Subjects
o Best case – find your users
o Adequate – find users of similar
demographics
• Attracting Subjects
o Give encouragement
(sweets or coffee cards)
o We held 5 events, alternate
Fridays, under a lime green umbrella
• Testing
o Keep exercises short and simple
o 5-8 subjects can reveal 80% of issues

15. User Study: Tasks and
Taxonomy
• Question
o What tasks are they looking for; What do they
call the tasks
• Study Format
o Guerilla model; one-on-one interviews
o Screen mock-up provided
• Tool / Cost / Strength
o Paper and Recording device
o Livescribe.com Recording Pen ($79)
o Good for subjective interviews

16. Tasks & Taxonomy:
Method 1
• Ask user to
mark up each
item and
explain
thinking
o Useful
o Don’t Need
o Don’t
Understand

17. Mock up Page

18. Livescribe Pen
• Non-Obtrusive
Recording
• Tap on notes to
replay
conversation at
that point
• Uses special
paper but you
can print it
yourself

19. Tasks & Taxonomy:
Method 2
• Card Sorting on
magnetic white board
o Leave some blank for
write-ins
o move them around
o Provide pens for
boxing, adding
buttons etc

20. Tasks & Taxonomy:
Method 2
Biggest strength:
• Users enjoyed it
• Drew people in to our
testing station

21. Developing Page Flow
Big Subjects:
o Menu and
Taxonomy
o What
Content on
each page

22. User Study: Page Flow
• Question
o What are the tasks; how do they proceed
• Study Format
o On-line, let users play and comment
• Tool / Cost / Strength
o iPlotz.com – online and desktop models together
o free to $99/year (depends on # of pages) and
$75 for desktop perpetual license (PC only)
o Good for modeling and demo-ing page flow
dynamically; also easy to create pages

23. Page Flow: Wireframing
Tools
• Not just a drawing tool:
Dynamic linking
Why we chose • Master pages (Templates)
iplotz.com • Online for best access / also
desktop for speed
• Good library of web objects
and graphic tools
• Can also put in photos
• Reasonable Price

24. User Study: Design
Comments
• Show concepts
and designs to
users early and
often - take the hits
early!
• Menus placement
and design central
to success
• Don’t neglect
secondary pages

25. User Study: DIY
users gain
appreciation for you see things
design issues a different way

26. Final Design: Live Testing
before Coding
• Tool:
IntuitionHQ.com
o Email survey link to users
o Users are divided among
two designs
o Users perform tasks on-line
by clicking on images
• Results show hot-
spots of how
many clicked
where
• 600 responses

27. Other Tools for Teams
• Dropbox or other cloud
storage to share files
• Grou.ps – CMS for wiki,
chat, blogs, file
storage/sharing, forums,
$3/mo
• Unfuddle.com – During site
building, provides ticketing,
GIT repository, server log /
notebook capability
($10/month)
• OneNote (online and
desktop; great
notebook/pg structure)
• Prezi.com – presentations,
especially where you need
excitement

28. Summary
• Survey - online surveys good for
gathering lots of responses
• Guerilla testing good for quickly
engaging the user: qualitative
testing, specific task testing,
functionality lists, specific
questions
• Hot-Spot testing good for testing
visual designs before you code

29. Summary: Tools
• KISSinsights.com (survey tool)
• Livescribe.com (recording pen)
• iPlotz.com (wireframing tool)
• IntuitionHQ.com (hot-spot tool)
• Team tools: dropbox, grou.ps,
unfuddle.com, prezi.com
• Always – your imagination!

30. Questions?
For later questions: marie.raney@wwu.edu