Project : Usability testing of information architecture of Missouri S&T website's Biological Sciences page: http://biosci.mst.edu/
(Note: This project was part of my academics as a student of Master’s in Information Science & Technology with focus in Human-computer interaction)
Duration : Jan 2019 - May 2019
Team : My team consisted of 4 members. The focus of this project was on practical evaluation of the site's Information architecture with the goal of providing recommendations for improving system functionality and usability.
My role involved :
- Initial analysis and coming up with potential site hierarchy using card sorting and tree testing.
- Usability testing of existing Site hierarchy.
Tools used : Optimal workshop (card sort,tree testing), Morae (eye tracking for testing usability)
Goals and taskS:
- The first task involved creating a list of ten types of information for each of the four user groups and then reducing the list to 10 most important information:
a) Prospective students for the department's programs
b) Current students in the programs
c) Alumni of the programs
d) Job recruiters for graduates of the department.
Results/Learning: This activity allowed me to identify and reason the important information and then prioritize top 10 types of information that could be a part of potential site map.
Setting up cardsort:
- We then set up an open card sort with no more than 30 items / pages using optimal workshop, and recruited 5 participants.
Card sort Interpretation:
Analysis: We used exploratory analyses to review the results of our card sort. Our analyses focused on four parts:
a) The logic participants follow in the categories they've created,
b) The cards people put together in the same group all the time,
c) The cards which are never put together (hence considered conceptually different by participants), and
d) The type of labels participants suggest for representing our information.
Interpretation: Comparing the results from the current website structure and labeling with our results we have found some differences and similarities. Participants have grouped the cards based on their understanding and the context. There were a total of 35 categories created by all participants. After standardizing, it declined to 17.
Similarities between our results and the website structure showed us that the labeling of categories were very similar to the labeling of card names. The words may differ, but the overall general theme of the label was similar within the sort. Other similarities included the same cards were sorted into the same general category as the website structure
Improvements: Based on the results we recommend splitting some items and adding additional labels that are specific to a category that a user looking into the department could use to navigate the website with ease. We hope to create a clearer path in the architecture for which the user can easily access information they are searching.
Current Site Hierarchy
Some examples for Card sort results and labelling
Tree test Interpretation:
- For our Tree testing we chose the three most important information, and created a task for each, which requires a user to find that information on the site, making sure that
- Each represented a different user group (prospective student, student, alumni, or recruiter)
- The information / the correct answer to the task is available within the web site hierarchy we created.
One example of tree test with results
Results: Based on the results of the tree test above, we interpreted that the directness of task 1 may be unclear to the participants. The results show that the failure of the participants to choose the correct answer in the tree test, that they could be confused by the task or the grouping of information.
Usability Testing OF EXISTING SITE HIERARCHY:
- We then created a protocol to conduct a moderated usability and eye tracking tests, i.e. a script was used giving directions to the test participant. we asked each participant to think out loud while observing the users eye movements. The script consisted of the top ten pieces of information identified during task 1 in the form of questions.
For example: You are a current graduate student planning to enroll for classes for next semester. I would like you to find the courses that are available each semester.
- Is this the information you expected to find?
- How easy was it to find the desired information? Rate on scale 1 to 5 (1- very easy, 2-easy, 3-moderate, 4-Hard, 5-Very hard)
- Is the information useful?
Results: All the participants were able to find the correct information. We concluded that the information displayed is what all the participants had expected to see. However the ease of finding the information and usefulness of information differed for each task
Further study: The analysis for this particular question is not very straightforward as all the participants have different perspective about the easiness hence we will need more participant data to get to a conclusion but we can say that “very hard” case can be ruled out. All the participants found the information to be very useful. We also recommend breaking down the information into more categories and re-labelling some of them.
