user testing feedback!

EDIT: It came to my attention that nowhere in here did I reference what was Wireframe C and what was Wireframe D. Just to be totally clear –

• This is wireframe C
• This is wireframe D

Maybe I should do some user testing for this blog?

Today was our first day of user testing with the functional wireframes we created for the website redesign. I went up to Ferris High School this morning and sat down with a handful of students to go through the wireframes with some basic user tasks to see how the site organization and navigation worked for them.

Boy, was it awesome.

There’s a lot riding on these user tests. I’ve referenced on more than one occasion in my presentations that if these user tests don’t go well, we’ll go back to the drawing board and rethink our approach.

I’m pleased to announce that it looks like we can safely put the drawing board away! The functional wireframes were received very well. Here’s my bullet-pointed summary:

• Users preferred the functionality of wireframe D over wireframe C
• They hardly noticed (i.e., they effortlessly used them) the left nav, top nav and dropdowns — a sign of a strong user interface
• For tasks like finding tuition/fees, program information, majors/minors, financial aid, directions, etc. users looked in their logical buckets without using the dropdown audience-based navigation. This is a big point! If something didn’t fit as nicely into those categories (things like housing/dining info, clubs & activities, etc.) they went for the audience dropdowns. Otherwise, they used the main navigation bar — Academics, Admissions, Resources, etc. — or the footer for their primary information needs.
• Having the “Apply Now” link prominent in the masthead made it extremely easy for them to point to where they would go to Apply. A couple of students felt that the Future Students dropdown and then the Apply Now link was more comfortable for them but that it was just a matter of preference
• Users clicked on the logo in the upper left when told to go “Home.”
• When showed the initial two design concepts, users preferred the look of C over D, stating consistently that they felt there was too much “white” in design D. They liked the functionality of content and navigation in D better than C, but they felt that the lack of color was a drawback to D and still reminiscent of the current EWU site.
• When users did get lost (which happened rarely) it had to do with how content was laid out on what we call the “splash” pages — pages without the left navigation. This is good because those problems are easily remedied by improved design and/or seasonal updates.
• I heard at least 5 or 6 times, “Wow, that was easy!” with an almost surprised tone to it. I think these students have either A) tried to navigate our current site or B) had bad luck navigating other university sites!

There’s the synopsis! All in all, I’m very pleased with what we’ve put together and I think the fruits of the research and work we’ve all done up until this point is beginning to pay off! I’m planning to do another group of students this week or very early next week, but things are looking promising for a modified version of wireframe D! We’re now working on aesthetic design options of the D functionality.

Thanks to everyone who has been involved in this process so far! You are all fantastic to work with and I applaud you for your dedication and commitment to doing what is most right for EWU. In particular, I’d like to thank the following folks who have spent a great number of hours so far to get us to the point we’re currently at:

• The MarCom Web Team (Sam Buzby, Kit Frantzich, Sheila Wollweber)
• The IT Web Team (Alex Chernikov, Betsy Knox, Colin Turnbull)
• The EWU Web Community Leaders (Paul Merchant, Dana Simmelink, Scott Zinn)
• The rest of the MarCom team for their valued input and ideas (Dave Sonntag, Teresa Conway, Kandi Carper, John Demke, Dave Meany, Ryan Gaard, Matt Hepworth, Steve Bateman)
• Desautel Hege Communications (Michelle Hege, Kristen Paul, Lisa Cargill)
• Klundt-Hosmer Design (thanks Rick and Mastery!)

…forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone!

So, onward and upward! We will continue to test and post more of our findings. Once we have the initial design concepts ready as well, those will go up for all to comment on.

a change in perspective

You’ve seen the optical illusion before. It’s interesting how, even though you’ve seen it so many times, you still feel that mental shift almost like shutters in a window when you adjust your mind to look at it from both perspectives.

There’s a great article on A List Apart from a couple days ago that is highly applicable to what we’re going through with the redesign. Titled “Look at it Another Way”, the article explains how critical it is to really put yourself in the place of the folks using your system in order to truly deliver something to them that is useful and effective.

This goes back to the discussion I brought up a while back on whether or not we call the housing here on campus “Dorms” or “Residence Halls” (out of curiosity, did anyone see all the back to school ads in the paper over the last month or two? how many of them referenced residence halls?). It’s easy for us to always come from the perspective of “us telling them” — as the “creator of the system.” It isn’t so easy to come from the opposite perspective of “us asking them.”

Fortunately for us, all of the research we did at the outset of this process has given us much insight into the needs of the people who will be using our site the most. Now we’re at a point where we’ll actually see if the ideas we’ve come up with to accommodate their needs actually work in practice. I’ll be going into a few high schools next week sitting down one on one with high school students to walk them through some user stories using the functional wireframes we’ve created. (NOTE: We’ve only created them to function correctly in Firefox 2 and 3 — they’ll work okay in IE and other browsers, I just can’t make any promises).

During the test, I’ll ask them to perform some very basic actions using the site’s navigation structure. Examples would be:

• How much does it cost to attend EWU?
• What’s the housing like at EWU?
• How do you apply to attend EWU?
• How do you find financial aid info?
• What are the available majors and minors at EWU?

If they get hung up along the way or if they somehow get confused or lost, I’ll probe with other questions to find out where their difficulty is coming from — what the root of their confusion is. The feedback I get will be posted here for everyone to see.

If you have time, I’d suggest poking around in the wireframes yourself. Only some of the links are functional since we’re not spending the time here to create a completely functional site. We’re really interested in finding out if people are able to perform critical functions on the site easily. Feel free to test them out on friends and family too! I’d love to hear what others have to say about these new navigation paradigms.

web redesign meeting recap

Thanks everyone who came to the web redesign meeting today in JFK. As I said in the meeting, I appreciate the questions you bring up — and one of the only ways we can know about your concerns or questions is if you bring them up with us directly. We certainly don’t want to make this process one where folks are feeling like they’ve been left behind in the project’s dust. That’s one of the reasons behind this blog — to provide a place where you can find out information about the project and give feedback as you feel necessary.

I know some of you were unable to make it and so I’m posting the brief status update I handed out at the meeting. Some of the information contained in the pdf is redundant from what you’ve already read on the blog, but there’s also information in there about where we’re going from here.

You can find the PDF version of the handout here.

Also, here are a few other university sites where we think they’ve done a nice job with their navigation, functionality and/or design. This isn’t an exhaustive list as we’ve checked out a ton of other sites out there that have done a nice job (both university sites as well as other non-university sites). If you’re interested in more examples let me know!

Biola University
Virginia Tech
University of Nebraska Lincoln
Appalachian State

And finally, here are some of the very early wireframes we have worked out. These are right now in the middle of being refined and adjusted in preparation for user testing (read: these are early wireframes and are by no means meant to indicate a final direction or decision). But they ought to get folks thinking about the new site map as well as site functionality.

Wireframe A (done by Klundt-Hosmer)

Wireframe B – Screen 1
Wireframe B – Screen 2
Wireframe B – Screen 3
Wireframe B – Screen 4
Wireframe B – Screen 5
Wireframe B – Screen 6

Wireframe C – Screen 1
Wireframe C – Screen 2
Wireframe C – Screen 3
Wireframe C – Screen 4

(We have more wireframes on the way and when they’re spruced up and functional, I’ll post again…but consider these food for thought until then.)

Thanks again to everyone who came and to those of you who continue to read this blog and are interested in the project! I’m looking forward to meeting with you all again soon.