Usability study
For the usability test of a website, I chose the site of Cornell University (because a friend is studying there) and I asked my girlfriend — Camila to be the test rabbit for the task and find first the school mascot, then find out if the school offers foreign language instructions for Arabic and then to find the nearest airport.
Usability test
The first quest did not take much time and Camila went straight to the search window and typed in: mascot. That was quick thinking, but the results were confusing transporting her to a parallel tab and offering a list of results all mentioning a mascot, but showing no hint about the mascot of Cornell. Camila then again was quick thinking on her feet and specified the search with keywords Cornell mascot and this time we found out about the brown bear of Cornell.
The second quest involved more clicks as first Camila started to search under Academics — Fields of Study — Linguistics..but with no success. So she turned again to the search window typing in: Arabic and soon found out that it is possible to study Arabic at Cornell as an undergraduate minor program under the Department of Near Eastern Studies.
But the third quest was the one which took the longest time. First, she tried to find the information under Student life — Centre for First-year Students. No success. Next under Admissions. No success. Then under About Cornell — Different campuses -Maps and directions and noticed a remark about an option of flights from and to Ithaca Tompkins County Regional Airport. But as it was not sure whether it is the right answer the search went on and after going through some of the suggested and outsourced links…under — Visit Ithaca we finally found confirmation that Ithaca Tompkins County Regional Airport is the right answer.
Reflections and potential solution
Afterwards while reflecting on the exercise and giving another look at the website Camila described the website as ‘a little bit overwhelming’ with ‘too many things and options’- two lines of navigation options on the top of website, plenty of content to scroll through in the middle and then more navigation options at the bottom (see).
She said she is ‘missing some straightforward logic’ there and was ‘a bit annoyed’ by the need to ‘scroll through the whole site until the end to see whether (she) hasn’t missed an option’.
At that point it became clear that my proposed solution should be centered around NAVIGATION and the ARCHITECTURE OF INFORMATION:
- to reduce the navigation options in the header and footer
- to reduce the need to scroll down
- and to simplify the outline of the site that could guide people to the most productive content that could both inform and attract, and at the same time also increase its appeal for potential smartphone users.
The process & proposal
To come up with the potential proposal I used three main strategies. First, I thought of which headings I could eliminate and which ones combine. Second, I went through several headings and tried to identify the most important links and information as well the image that the university tries to portray. And third, I Googled some examples of the best university websites to draw some inspiration.
So in my proposal, I decided to leave only one line of heading with 5 options and emphasize the search option which was so helpful in our experience. The options left are following: one devoted to general information — About Cornell; one section for current students — Studies & Student life; one about the academic and research activities of the University — Academic staff & Research; one that emphasises Cornell university as public and active institution and is part of the image that through its different information and links the website seems to suggest to me — Public engagement & Outreach; as well as one section in which the different people and social groups (e.g. parents, donors, alumni and of course future students) with links and interest in the university could find their needed information — Visitors.
I also decided to leave place for a large high-definition image that could replace text and showcase what the university values — as student life or examples of academic and public excellence. And I left some space for the news and chronicle of the university as well as general info about upcoming events (see).
Meanwhile, within the internal architecture of the information, I decided to keep the structure of info + related links. For the info section headings, I mostly used the already existing headings but tried to offer them a clear logic, meanwhile for the related links I often added new headings and used a call-to-action language (see).
What I realized? Less is more, less is more…
