NCAD WEBSITE REDESIGN. Evaluating Experiences.
Two week group project. One week solo project.
For this project, we were asked to evaluate and redesign an existing website. We chose the NCAD website as many of us, as students of NCAD, found it difficult to find the relevant information for our course.
Learning outcomes; Best practise for website design, Use cases, Heuristic Evaluation, Information architecture, Usability testing, Journey mapping, Paper and Mid-Fi prototyping.
RESEARCH
Our starting point was to consider the overall contribution and the website as a digital platform more broadly. As a group of three we identified existing users, evaluated the existing interface, performed a task analysis, usability testing, an heuristic evaluation, user journey maps and reported usability issues.
USER TESTING
Scenario. You are interested in studying the MSc in Medical Design at NCAD.
A. We would like you to go to the website and find information about the course programme.
B. Next we would like you to find further information about the modules available for this course.
KEY FINDINGS
Utility. The current student section of the site is not sufficiently visible to users. Students are unaware that there is a section of the website catered to them.
Information Architecture. Due to the poor organisation of the website, users are going around in circles. The website layout and content lacks a logical flow.
Visual Page Organisation. The pages are too text heavy and there is a lack of hierarchical grouping.
Define a standard. What is clickable? Clickable text is presented in different colour, sometimes with and without an underline. There needs to be more consistency to guide the user.
Labelling. Website labels are unclear, and duplication occurs frequently.
The website is not functioning effectively nor efficiently and thus, creates increased work for administrative staff. For instance, Ann, the main receptionist receives roughly seven calls a day regarding website information. If this information was presented more clearly, it would reduce her workload.
The section of the website dedicated to current students does not provide enough dominance on the homepage. Current students are unaware this section even exists.
Due to the poor structure of the information architecture, many users scrolled around endlessly and never reaching the information they require.
CONCEPT
-- Solo project from this point --
For the solo part of this project, I developed a number of iterations of my design through a combination of sketching, low-fidelity prototyping and continued testing. Finally, I developed a mid-fidelity design, with a final round of testing.
