Information Architecture & Design:
Arranging information to enhance the experience for CUAHSI
Timeline: 2.5 Months​
Keywords : Usability Testing & Analysis, Personas, Task Flow Diagram, Card Sorting, Site Map / Navigation Bar, Figma Mid-Fidelity Mockups
Overview
During my consulting experience, I would lead a team of undergraduates through various consulting experiences. However, this was one of the few where I took ownership of every aspect of the engagement rather than be a project manager and support for the undergraduates. In this engagement, over the course of 6 milestones, I worked with CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.), a non-profit organization focusing on water science, to enhance the usability of their website.
The milestones included:
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Personas
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Task Flow Diagramming
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​Usability Testing & Analysis
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Card Sorting Activity
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Suggested Site Map
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Mid-Fidelity Mockups
Outcome
After this consultation process, CUAHSI completely revamped their website interface utilizing many of the suggestions from this engagement.
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They redesigned their landing page, site navigation, as well as made it easier for the user to understand their brand and what they do as an organization.
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Overall, the site looks significantly better and is much more user friendly as well! You can see the new site here.
Persona
In order to best understand the users, I created personas to showcase the various users who utilize the CUAHSI website. Each user is unique in their motivations as well as goals when navigating throughout the site. By working with the client, I was able to create three users whom most commonly interacted and used the site. By initially better understanding the users, I was able to focus on how to specifically enhance their experiences.
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While three personas were made, I will focus my identified main user, the graduate student seeking funding.
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Task Flow Diagram
By using this persona, I then created a task flow analysis and outlined the step by step process it takes for the user to achieve their goal. The goal of this user is to find opportunities for funding and networking. As CUAHSI had multiple navigation bars (one at the top of the homepage as well as another further down the homepage), I focused on the navigation bar which is most obvious to the user.
For the purpose of my portfolio, I focused on one user and goal. All 3 personas and task flows can be found here.
Usability Testing & Analysis
Over the course of two weeks, I recruited five users to identify frustrations and desires in the current CUAHSI website. This evaluation of the CUAHSI site focused on how users navigate around the site, how the site represents CUAHSI (brand), as well as understanding what is most important to users.
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Through these testings, I found common pain points and praises about the CUAHSI site. After discussion, I prioritized 6 areas we thought need more attention. The following pages contain detailed explanations of the problems and design suggestions for how to improve.
Overall findings
Key Issue: Multiple Navigation Bars
Analysis
On the CUAHSI website there are multiple navigation bars. From the top bar, to the side navigation bar on the pages as well as another bar further down on the homepage, there are many places to click.
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One observation from these tests is every single participant only used the top navigation bar when completing tasks. The other bars were ignored and not interacted with.
Design Suggestion: Only use side navigation for items that might not be easily accessible from top navigation. Repeating the same menu items is redundant and takes up space!
Card Sorting Activity & Proposed Navigation
One common theme which arose from the usability testing included confusion around navigation. This confusion was partially due to the company jargon as well as multiple navigation bars.
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In order to combat these issues, myself and my undergraduate counterpart, led a co-design which we worked with CUAHSI in a card sorting activity in which we reimagined the navigation of the website.
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From here, I created a new proposed site navigation to assist in enhancing the user experience.
Site Map Proposal:
Figma Mockups
This final milestone was centered around reimagining various CUAHSI pages.
Through the prior milestones, I was able to take previous lessons / findings in order to create these mid-fidelity mockups. These mockups included the homepage, education / programs landing page, education resources page, data / compute page and the menu bar.
Banner Idea 1
Banner Idea 2
Lessons Learned
This engagement occurred near the beginning of my consulting experience. However, it was one of the most thorough consulting engagements with the most milestones. It was truly enlightening to be exposed to so many aspects of the UX process, talking to actual users, and ultimately providing suggestions which (by the looks of their new website) were actually implemented. You can check out the new CUAHSI site here.
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Since this engagement, I've grown more confident in my abilities. While I learned it is important to create personas to understand users, I would likely not create 3 personas at once for one engagement but rather scope down a bit more. When talking to users, and conducting tests, I learned the importance of protocols as well as creating a comfortable environment for users to open up. This engagement was truly challenging but it really did help me grow.