The Study website was the first website to be migrated to Drupal 10 at University of Queensland in 2020. Since launch the CX team has made various improvements to the content and structure of this website, it's time to complete a holistic review of the study website experience to understand what improvements we can make to optimise the experience for users.
🟣 The UQ Study website is one of the most visited sites at UQ, I'm very grateful to work on this project with our team, and provide future direction/recommendations with my expertise.
🟣 Our recommendations were based on findings from usability testing, not assumptions.
🟣 Overall, the Customer Experience managers and business stakeholders were satisfied with the outcome.
🟣 Next step for us is to prioritise recommendations and create spin-off projects for 2025.
The UX-UI designer kicked off the project with a UX/heuristic review of the current website experience to identify potential usability issues and define the testing area. Simultaneously, the team decided to conduct a 'fact-finding' survey on the website.
The purpose of this survey was to gather quick user feedback, which would be instrumental in shaping our design decisions. I took the lead in defining the survey's objectives.
Below is the simplified design process of this project.
In this survey, we wanted to identify the audience groups who come to the UQ Study website, their reasons for visiting, and understand the ease of visitors finding information and satisfaction levels.
To encourage visitors to respond, I designed the survey to be short and straightforward. Also, kept survey questions open-ended, most of the questions were multi-choice that visitors had a list of options to choose from (people hate written tasks!)
I also considered a few other things so that the survey pop-up will not compromise user experience while allowing us to get as much responses as we need.
- Anyone who comes to the website can see the survey
- The survey appears in the bottom right corner as soon as the pages load
- Users have the option to close the survey, and it will be shown again after 24 hours
Most users visited the UQ Study website were either considering undergraduate study, postgraduate study, higher degree by research or were already current students at UQ.
The UX-UI designer returned to the UXR team with a list of things she wanted to test. The whole team discussed the feasibility of testing and defined out-of-scope items. We then prioritised top 4 areas that needed immediate attention.
Research goal:
- identify if our targeted audience (future students) can find a degree that aligns with their interest area
- identify if future students can find alternative pathways to their preferred programs
- identify if future students can find affordability information
- understand how parents & guidance counsellors find information about the experience of going to UQ
I started by defining the objectives of the test plan. This was a qualitative research that aimed to understand the thinking and difficulties experienced by individual users in the UI.
Each task needs to answer the defined sub-objectives. I provided enough detail to set the scene without giving too many hints and also made the scenario realistic to keep participants motivated to do the task.
The tasks, in general, involved asking participants to complete several scenarios and rating their experiences. I then observed their movement patterns and ability to complete their goals..
We ended up having 4 test sets to test across different audience groups and devices. The test sets then shared with the stakeholders to gather their feedback, I then set the test sets on User Testing platform for a trial session, it was a good way to discover any problems with the test plan design and procedure.
One good thing about recruiting participants from the User Testing network was that tests were filled quickly and could reach a niche target audience. However, it was crucial to identify the authenticity of participants and recruit the RIGHT audiences.
At the early stage of the testing, I conducted many authentic checks, reconfirming participants' demographic details and previous experiences and checking specific behaviours relevant to this particular audience group.
It was a rewarding and bitter process, as I saw some quality and authentic participants providing detailed feedback, as well as some doggy participants trying to rush through the test.
One of the challenges of this project was recruiting participants who had just graduated from high school, from the ages of 18-20. (age below 18 need guardian approval and supervision, our timeline did not allow us to do so)
Recognising the small audience on the User Testing platform, I decided to relax the screener question and relaunched the tests a few times to ensure it didn't deter potential participants, thereby allowing us to reach a wider pool of testers.
Testing dates: 12th - 28th June, 2024
Participants:
- 28 participants in total aged from 18-50
- 71% domestic & 29% international, 43% female & 57% male
Audience groups:
- prospective UG & PG students, high school graduates, parents, and guidance counsellors
When analysing the qualitative results, I liked pulling all participants' results into a Miro board. Then, I started grouping insights and identifying themes. I also made sure the findings answered our original objectives. Below is my analysis process.
The primary purpose of the UQ Study website is for prospective students to find a degree at the University of Queensland. In addition to study information, the website also provides a lot of support information, such as accommodation, admission, scholarships, etc.
Due to time constraints, we narrowed our scope to focus on delivering meaningful insights and addressing the supporting information in the recommendations. Below are the top 4 findings and recommendations from the survey, usability testing, data analytics, and navigational testing.
Finding: The tab menu is an important navigational feature for desktop participants, while the tab row menu was not prominent to mobile participants.
On average, users spent approx. 20% of their time on tab on desktop vs 10% on mobile, indicating there may be a discoverability issue with tabs on mobile.
Recommendation: Further testing to understand users expectations around tab content.
Finding: Participants selected 'view courses' link on find a program page, navigating away from the study website to search for programs.
Some participants missed the search input field when interacting with Find a program page, this could be contributing to the behaviour of selecting ‘View courses’ link.
Recommendation: Review placement of ‘View courses’ link and label and styling of search input field.
Finding: Many participants did not discover the 'Off-campus living' and other content lower on the page, as the current page design gives an illusion of a false floor.
Some participants found it challenging to understand different on-campus accommodation options as the names given are similar.
Recommendation: Review structure and content of the UQ Living page.
Finding: When comparing the top 5 trafficked pages on study website the scroll depth on the study homepage was significantly less when compared with the other top pages, impacting discoverability of content lower on the page.
Study - 13% of users scrolled 50%
Remainder of top 5 - 50% of users scrolled 50% on average.
Recommendation: Review structure and content of UQ Study homepage.
In the first week of October 2024, the whole design team met together to prioritise recommendations based on business value, end user value, time criticality, scoping, and complexity before the senior manager brought them to the external team and management.
This work (recommendations for the study website) will become many spin-off projects for next year. It will keep us very busy! Stay tuned for my updates.
