UX Analysis of the UMD COVID-19 Website
Cooper Kidd
Overview
-Background
-Study Goals
-Methodology
-Study Participants
-Findings
-Recommendations
Background
In order for a website to be usable, a website must be:
-Available and Accessible
-Clear
-Intuitive or Easy to Learn
-Credible
-Relevant
Background
“User-centered design (UCD) is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. In UCD, design teams involve users throughout the design process via a variety of research and design techniques, to create highly usable and accessible products for them.”
From:
Interaction-Design.Org
Background
Therefore, we need to figure out:
Background
https://s3.amazonaws.com/www-inside-design/uploads/2019/04/6stageuxprocess.png
Background
1
User Research
2
User Testing, Surveys, & Interviews
3
Website Improvements
Background
https://umd.edu/4Maryland
Study Goals
-Find out how UMD faculty, staff, and students get the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 as related to the University of Maryland, and what they feel works well, where they think there are issues, and how they think things could be improved.
-Identify what users of the UMD COVID-19 webpage want and think about the UMD COVID-19 website.
-Identify any usability problems with the UMD COVID-19 site, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant's satisfaction with the UMD COVID-19 website.
Methodology
-Usability tests (7) to find usability problems with the UMD COVID-19 website, collect data about the website, and determine level of satisfaction with the website
-User surveys (10) to identify what users of the UMD COVID-19 webpage want from the UMD COVID-19 webpage and determine what they think about the website right now
-User interviews (7) to figure out how people use the UMD COVID-19 website and what they think is good, bad, and neutral about the site
-Diary study (1) to compare different university’s COVID-19 websites and see how UMD’s COVID-19 website compares
Study Participants
-Wide range of study participants:
-Undergraduate Students
-Graduate Students
-Perspective Students
-Graduate Assistants
-Staff
-Parents of Students, Undergraduate
Study Participants
-Variety of Genders:
-Male
-Female
-Non-binary
-Large Age Range:
-17 to 60+ years old
Findings
-Many people like that the website is a centralized location for all information
-Website is disorganized
-The highlighting of important information, such as campus protocol for post-spring break is helpful
-If everything is bolded or highlighted or red, it is hard to tell what to pay attention to
Findings
-Many people do not go to the UMD COVID-19 homepage
-Parents of students and staff check the website but not many students
-Rather, they go to the return.umd.edu directly from University emails or typing the link directly into the search bar
-Correlates to survey results of how people learned about the website
Findings
-General sentiment: ‘if the UMD COVID-19 home page were more helpful, I might use the website more often’
-Most users like and utilize the return.umd.edu section of the website
-Wish there was an option to return to the UMD COVID-19 home page
-Parents find this section annoying since they cannot figure out how to login
Findings
-Staff find website to not be credible and have multiple missions
“It appears that the website is a mix between actual useful information and a
public relations attempt to make the University appear to be knowledgeable
about COVID and are taking COVID seriously”
-Website is not intuitive
-Hard to navigate, tricky, and time consuming to find information
Findings
-Hard to find actual COVID-19 related statistics on webpage
-Percentage of students testing positive relative to on-campus population
-‘Dashboard’ title is too vague to actually be useful
Findings
-Front page feels like it is two pages merged together
-Too many people working on website feeling
-It should either start here or here
Recommendations
-Add a filter when someone enters the website to ask if they are a faculty, staff, undergraduate student, prospective student, graduate student, or other
-Change the information displayed to the user to be relevant to the user
-For ex., if a faculty member enters the website, show information about how courses are being delivered (remotely or in-person)
-Rename the ‘dashboard’ to something that indicates that it showcases case counts, positivity rate, etc.
-‘Dashboard’ is too vague
Recommendations
-Move the dashboard to the home page
-This is information people want to find easily, not have to search for
Recommendations
-Make it clear who has access to login to different sections of the website
-Add a short sentence, ‘Login is for students, faculty, and staff only’
-May reduce confusion and frustration
-Website should “focus really on accuracy and data and make it easy for the different stakeholders to find the information they need”
-Less flowery language and trying to make people feel safe and more emphasis on actual information
Recommendations
-Use highlighting features such as red text and yellow boxes sparingly so only really important information is highlighted
-Make it clear what text and boxes are clickable or lead you to another page
-Underline links
-Change coloring of boxes so they it is clear they are clickable boxes
-Make boxes not white on white and symmetrical (same size)
Recommendations
-Choose where to start website either with text or with the 4Maryland logo
-Having both makes the website feel disorganized
-Widen the website to the edge of the page
-Get rid of unnecessary sides so website looks like this:
Recommendations
-Distill information so that only the most important information lives on the page
-Make website less cluttered
-Will encourage more people to read the page
-Break up large walls of texts with pictures or lines
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