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How user research shaped the thinking towards developing our institutions central web portal
- 1. HOW USER RESEARCH SHAPED THE THINKING TOWARDS DEVELOPING OUR INSTITUTION'S CENTRAL WEB PORTAL BRENDAN OWERS @BRENDANOWERS
- 2. WHAT WILL BE COVERED • Background and context – Shaping a new information architecture (IA) • User Research (UX) activities: user interface (UI) and navigation development • Impact • Reflections
- 3. UOE • 41,000 students • 14,700 staff • 3 colleges, 20 schools • 3 professional service groups • ...and lots of digital services *Figures based on 2017/18 University factsheet [image credit: The University's Old College Quad.© http://www.nealesmith.com]
- 4. MyEd • 2003: MyEd launched • …some upgrades later • 2017: uPortal 4.3 (an open source enterprise portal framework) “…a gateway to web-based services within and beyond the University and offers a personalised set of content with single sign on to key University services”
- 5. A DIGITAL EXPERIENCE WHICH MAKES THE USER FEEL THE UNIVERSITY’S ONLINE ENVIRONMENT IS CENTERED AROUND THEM
- 6. WHAT WE KNOW • “I can cope with MyEd but it took me a while to get used to it” • “It’s very disorganised. It’s full of sections with unhelpful headings and most parts aren’t relevant” • “The point is not having all that information over you when you search for something specific” • “It’s been 3 years and 8 times out of 10 I click in the wrong place in MyEd”
- 7. Images created by Gillian Kidd, UoE Graphics Service
- 8. Images created by Gillian Kidd, UoE Graphics Service
- 9. NEW MYED: A USER CENTRED PORTAL • New technical framework (uPortal5 and a new React frontend) • Migration of current portal content • Improved user experience, centred around student needs
- 10. PRIORITIES… • Where to focus our effort? • Workshop to establish priorities • Priorities: – Organisation of content – Labelling and terminology – Finding content – Mobile
- 11. 250members Portal Services Student Focus Group
- 12. IA AND VOCABULARY – OPEN CARD SORT • Goal: explore how different students prioritise and group portal tasks, and label those tasks, and their rationale for their choices https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/card-sorting.html
- 13. IA AND VOCABULARY – HYBRID DELPHI SORT • Goal: exposing our consolidated sort to more users, to get to a stable model, and an understanding of the reasoning and needs behind the groupings and labelling
- 14. EARLY DESIGN RESEARCH AND TESTING
- 15. STRUCTURED USER TESTING - NAVIGATION • Method: – Usability testing • Purpose: – Test navigation patterns and link behaviour • Findings: – Students were comfortable with the different link behaviours – Students were observed repeatedly scanning through the menu categories. https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and- tools/methods/usability-testing.html
- 16. STRUCTURED USER TESTING - HOMEPAGE AND FAVOURITES • Method: – Usability testing – Interview questions • Purpose of research: – To understand whether the content on the new homepage met students needs • Findings: – Confirmed that the proposed content was correct – No additional content required – Strong support for favouriting functionality
- 17. RESEARCH AT SCALE • Early research with small numbers of students • Online activities to engage large numbers of students • Online card sort • Tree test • Preview of the new service Tool used: https://www.optimalworkshop.com/optimalsort
- 18. RESEARCH AT SCALE – ONLINE CARD SORT
- 19. Tree Test Testing the navigation structure Do users find information? How directly do they find information?
- 22. IMPACT New MyEd: • Content organised in ways that make sense to users • A new navigation approach • A decluttered, relevant home page • A cleaner, faster mobile experience The team: • Open minded, not making assumptions • Confidence gained in running co-creation activities • Ability to analyse feedback and results • UX embedded into service delivery
- 23. WORKING WITH GREAT PEOPLE :) • Mary Elder • Mairi Fraser • Leigh Gordon • Thalia Nikolaidou • Adam Wheavil • Peter Jackson • Nicola Dobieka • Sonia Virdi • Annie Adam • Marissa Cummings • Qais Patankar • Chris Copner • Ranald Swanson • Tim Gray • Karen Stirling • Michael Sun • Dani Migliorelli • Ben Sheffield
- 24. REFLECTIONS • UX was a critical part of the project – Learnt what students use and value • …and implemented it • Any user research is better than no research • Great way to get buy-in • Any project/service can take these approaches • Project is evidence that its worth investing in the time to organise, run and analyse these activities – They do take time = better end product Recent blog posts from the MyEd Service
- 25. GOOD SERVICES AREN’T CHEAP, CHEAP SERVICES AREN’T GOOD.
Editor's Notes
- - Funded in alignment in working towards improving student experience
- •The project that I am going to talk about today is the first step in implementing this. •Primarily a technical and migration project •Very limited scope to redevelop content •Challenge was to decide where to focus our effort, in order to deliver maximum benefit, within the constraints of the project.
- •Plenty of potential areas – what would have most impact? •Workshop with the whole project team, plus a colleague from the UX team to •review the existing research, and identify the areas causing most pain, that could be addressed in this project. Came up with 4 : •Next step – plan and undertake user research •Talk first about the work to address first two priorities, by establishing a user developed information architecture and vocabulary
- •Goal – first steps towards an information architecture, asking users to group and label tasks and information that they might use MyEd for, in ways that made sense to them. •70 cards, three pairs of students. •Output: three sets of grouped tasks •Surprising amount of consistency •Sub groups •Limited relabelling
- •Next – Hybrid Delphi sort •Goal – to get to a more stable model, and a better understanding of the reasoning and needs behind the groupings and labelling •Another 3 pairs of students, this time consecutively •Top level categories fairly stable, still a clear requirement for a hierarchical structure. •Output: •Emerging information architecture and vocabulary •Basis to start the Ui and in particular the navigation design
- •Next stage: starting the design phase •UX lead, plus member of design team, plus 3 student interns, sketching, using previous research, emerging IA, best practice, mobile first. •Generated initial wireframes that we tested with students: •Pop-up testing, taking a simple task set out to students, and using paper prototypes •Low cost, low overhead, very suitable for quick iterative design loops •Opportunity for the project team to talk directly with students •4 iterations, making changes as we went •Confirmed initial design approach •next phase of research, doing more detailed investigation into specific aspects of the design using structured usability testing •I’m going to talk about some of the areas we explored next.
- •Online card sort – using Optimal Sort, part of Optimal Workshop Suite. •Hybrid sort – used the output from the workshops, but students able to add and change •Great engagement – over 1000 students •Output: •Huge amount of data – over 14000 data points to analyse •Highest placed cards for the most part in the categories we provided •Consistency across demographics •However, the frequencies for some of the highest placed cards quite low, with less than 50% of students, meaning we also have to give careful consideration to 2nd and 3rd highest placed cards •Output - an IA and a draft navigation structure.
- •Treetest – checking whether users could actually find information in the structure they had created •Online, using Optimal Workshop again •Upload navigation tree, and a series of tasks for users to complete •Results show you whether users can find the information, and how easily they find it. •Most tasks OK, some were problematic, so we had to investigate these further.
- •Where did all this user research get us? •A new improved MyEd: •Content now organised around users, in grouping that they understand •A new navigation approach •The mega-menu – quick and easy way see what is available •Direct links from the menu •No more tabs – no need to load content you don’t need •Decluttered relevant front page •Clean, quick simple mobile view •Changes are quite subtle – we’ve no made massive changes to what it looks like, but how you interact with it is very different. Would not have been achieved without the user research – definitely took us in directions that we would not have gone in without that. Foundation work for work we will do in future.
- •It was an incredible valuable part of the project, and definitely led us in directions we would not otherwise have gone •We would have liked to do more, and there are areas where we didn’t do research, and should have, but any research is better than none. •It’s really helpful to get buy-in – it’s much easier to tell someone their content won’t be on the front page if you have evidence to back it up •We had help from our UX service, and that was great, but it’s still possible to do without that support. There are lots of resource out there, and towards the end, the project team doing it ourselves •Thoroughly recommend the approach.