NSF I-Corps Hub: Great Lakes Region
Conducted needs assessments and usability evaluation on NSF I-Corps Hub website.
Project Overview
During Winter 2022, I worked as a student UX Researcher to evaluate the website of NSF I-Corps Hub: Great Lakes Region. The purpose of this project is to help them make sure that the site is structured in a way that is accessible and easy to navigate for individuals to find the resources they need. Our team were able to conduct a series of UX research and expose existing problems within the website, and finally generate potential solutions for the client.
My Contribution
In this project, our team worked together on each study and wrote reports. I worked as the leader while we were doing heuristic evaluation and usability testing.
Skills: User Interview, Comparative Analysis, Survey, Heuristic Evaluation, Usability Testing
Background
The I-Corps hub is a part of the National Innovation Network. It is an organization working on addressing the need for innovation education, infrastructure, and research. It delivers an immersive education that teaches researchers how to successfully transfer knowledge into products and processes.
The website is where users can learn more about the information of I-Corps and apply for the programs they offer.
Challenge
The website was launched with a new branding in Jan 2022. However, there wasn't many users noticed its existence.
Our client wanted to make sure that the site terminology is understood by those not already actively engaged in technology commercialization and also wanted to see if there are ways that they can make navigating the site easier.
Research Process
Understand the Product
Client Meeting
When we received the project, we held our client meeting to understand the background, audiences, and the goals of the product.
Product goal
provides information for those who are interested in participating in the programs
allow users to apply for the program through the website
Target Audience
People who wants to learn how to transfer their research or study into reality (business).
Interaction Map
Since all of us haven't visited the website before, we wanted to create an interaction map to help us become familiar with it. We walked through the website to see how different pages connect. Then we took screenshots and labeled connected pages with arrows to show the screen flow. From this interaction map, we understood the pathways users could take to learn about the programs as well as apply for the programs.
Need Assessment
User Interview
The goal for user interview is to learn about users' needs. With the help of our client, we were able to reach different types of interviewee. Our interviewees were divided into three groups - the I-Corps Affiliates, Novice Users, and Former Users. We conducted four interviews in total.
Key Findings:
Participants joined the programs because they were keen to bridge the gap between the academic world and industry to fulfill their career goals.
Users want to see more detailed, clearer descriptions of the programs, including program timeline, expectation, outcome, contact information and etc. These types of information will help them determine whether they want to join the programs or not.
Most of the participants knew about the program indirectly and didn’t utilize the website a lot.
The website may need to provide more valued and comprehensive information
Redefine Target Audience —>
Comparative Analysis
We decided to do comparative analysis on similar products, to help us identify any good or bad practices that we should keep in mind. We discussed and selected six potential competitors based on Newman's taxonomy.
Key Takeaways:
Adding photos and making the program/event list organized would be helpful to give a great user experience at the first glance.
Setting FAQ would help users avoid confusion and reduce the communication cost for both users and program managers.
Providing customized content for subscribers is a common way to notify user with the newest events based on their interests.
User Survey
Our next study was to conduct a survey. The purpose of the survey was to understand potential users' motivation and behaviors towards the website. We distributed the survey to PhD students with STEM professions at the University of Michigan and some previous participants of the I-Corps Program through email. The survey was opened for 5 days and received 71 responses.
From the survey, we wanted to know:
What kind of researchers are more likely to attend I-Corps programs?
How would the I-Corps programs website help researchers with their needs?
How would researchers with STEM professionals like to utilize the website?
Survey Results:
People who lean toward industry are more likely to participate in the I-Corps programs than those who lean toward academia.
Participants value the learning experience and the outcomes, while the basic info such as contacts is their least concern.
Users visit the website mainly when searching for programs or wanting to learn about I-Corps. And the frequency is higher when the plan is to join a program.
Usability Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation
After knowing user's needs, we started to evaluate the website itself. We first conducted heuristic evaluation on the website, in order to identify any usability issues within its interface based on 10 different heuristic principles from Nielsen Norman. It also benefited us in generating suggestions for improving the website.
Usability Testing
To gain a deeper understanding of the usability problems that users face when using the website, 4 usability tasks were designed and focused on the key features. We recruited 5 participants who haven't used the website before to do the usability test.
4 Tasks:
Find the information about what I-Corps is and what I-Corps offers.
Find the information of Summer 2022 Sustainability Jumpstart Regional
Apply to the Summer 2022 Sustainability Jumpstart Regional I-Corps Course Program.
Find example of what previous participants did.
Findings & Recommendations
From all the research we've done, we synthesized all the findings into 4 key findings and generated corresponding recommendations.
Finding 1. Insufficient info of programs page
From our research, we found that when searching for the programs, users are looking for detailed information. Here's a ranking of the main content that users are looking for:
Recommendation: The program website can highlight the requirements for participants and how the program helps participants achieve their goals.
In order to aid the users with programs hunting and encourage them to apply, the website could add more essential information on each event page introducing each event. One good way to achieve this is to develop a template with sections of timeline, expectations, requirements, benefits, outcomes, contacts, and instruction of applying, etc. So that when new events are being added, all of the information is available to the viewers.
Finding 2. Navigation bar content inconsistent
The result of usability tests show that there could be some improvement in the navigation bar. First, all of the participants were confused about the “Event” tab on the menu and the “Programs” tab under the “About” drop down since they eventually go to the same destination. When participants attempted to find success stories from the previous users, they tend to go to the “Blog” and “Resources” tab. They told us that they intuitively thought the blogs should contain all stories.
Finding 2 👉
Finding 3. Unclear web page indicator
The indicator, which is the breadcrumb trail, is designed to show the path where users are. However, the indicator on the I-Corps website doesn’t exactly match the path that users have taken. It is causing confusion on the users since they may forget how they arrive to the current page and easily get lost. Moreover, the indicator is small and hard to see with an image background.
Finding 3 👉
Recommendation:
Rearrange the position of the breadcrumb and keep the word choices consistent.
Combine "Programs" and "Events".
Combine "Success Stories" and "Blog".
Consistency is one of the most important factors for a good website. According to these two findings, we recommend that I-Corps to rearrange the position of the breadcrumb indicator and keep the word choices consistent, in order to provide a more efficient experience for users while they are navigating through the website.
Finding 4. There are error prevention and efficiency issues in the program application form
Our last key finding is about the application form. First, there are some potential risks of losing or sending incorrect information. When users refresh the page, all the information they filled in will be gone. However, there is no alert to remind users what will happen when they click the refresh button. And the input field lack spelling checks so people might send misspelled words accidentally.
Second, there are some problems regarding the drop-down menu. Users tend to click it and hesitate for a while to find that they don't have to do anything with it, so it is actually a redundant step. Moreover, the list of universities is very long, and mobile users have to keep swiping to find their schools which might be a little annoying.
Recommendation:
Remove the program selection menu in application form.
Add auto-saving and error-checking.
Enable typing search of drop-down menus on the mobile site.
Summary & Next Steps
Although we've exposed some existing issues within the website, however, due to the resources and time we had, there were certainly shortcomings. For instance, most of our participants were from the University of Michigan community. And I-Corps are serving more than 10 universities in the state. We believe location could also be one of the influencing factors when users get to know about the programs from I-Corps. Therefore, more researches are needed.
Next Steps:
Conduct more research on target users outside UofM to increase the accuracy of result
Evaluate the pros and cons of integrating/collaborating with other platforms
