Determining the Need for Testing

A website is usable if it meets the needs of the intended audience through functionality, efficiency and desirability. User research was conducted to assist the iSchool in successfully meeting their key institutional objectives of recruitment and retention for Kent State University.

THE PROBLEM

The website for the iSchool is one of many tools used for both graduate student recruitment and retention at Kent State University. The iSchool’s primary objective with the website is to provide information and resources to both current and future graduate students.

User research was conducted to assist the iSchool in successfully meeting these key, institutional objectives, through data-driven decisions and designs. User research provides a thorough examination of the user’s perspective, helping us to understand the user’s goals they want to accomplish and what tasks they need to accomplish. 

The iSchool website can be made more useful by improving its information architecture.

  • It currently includes duplicate menu content under “Admissions” and “Academics” for the four academic programs.

  • This is creating a disruptive user journey pointing users to different sections of the site. 

BY THE NUMBERS

According to Google Analytics, menu links were down 35% year-over-year (YOY); and overall, the site’s pageviews were down by 39.97% YOY. The dates analyzed spanned Jan. 1, 2019 to July 4, 2019. This data suggested users were not able to successfully find the content.

NAVIGATION PRIOR TO USER RESEARCH

Initial Questions

The following questions were addressed during the study, and focused on the improvement areas.

  1. What are users looking for when they visit the iSchool website? 

  2. Where do users expect to find information on admissions for an iSchool  program? 

  3. Where do users expect to find information on an iSchool program?  

Usability Testing Goal

With the goal of the website being informational for both current and future students, ensuring that information is streamlined into the correct navigational buckets is crucial for users to successfully access this information.