THE USABILITY
AND FEATURES OF
MY UW-MADISON
COMMUNITY
written by: Barry Radler, radler@doit.wisc.edu
Division of
Information Technology
University of
Introduction
“My University of Wisconsin-Madison
Community” is a prototype of an integrated Web service which the
Evaluations of the prototype needed
to be made in a guided and first-person interaction with the site through an
Internet browser. This need would be
fulfilled by gathering a small group of students to be introduced to and guided
through the “My UW-Madison Community” website.
A quasi-focus group interviewing method was selected as the principal
tool to evaluate the reactions, comments, and opinions of potential users of
“My UW-Madison Community.”
A focus group is a qualitative research
procedure that allows groups of individuals with relatively homogeneous
characteristics to interact with each other to provide a range of perspectives,
experiences, and insights that help product developers to refine product
services to better meet the needs of users. Moreover, focus group interviews
may be used to explore customer satisfaction, and product developers can
effectively use this information to evaluate and improve the planning and
design of products, services, future technology, and product marketing
strategies. Focus groups also provide an
approach or technique to explore the arena and assess the range of topics,
concerns, and questions that would be relevant to consider in future
questionnaire design and development.
Irrespective of the many advantages
of focus group interviewing techniques, it is important to keep in mind that
the results of the focus group discussions are not necessarily representative
of the opinions and experiences of the total population. Just as importantly, the current research
design deviates from the standard focus group protocol in that the participants
were seated in front of computer terminal instead of around a table, thus
inhibiting interaction more than usual.
Description of the Study
As stated above, DoIT wished to
obtain audience evaluations of the prototype of “My UW-Madison Community” by
itself and relative to an existing site maintained by the University of
California-Los Angeles. The Wisconsin
Survey Research Laboratory (WSRL) was hired to recruit student participants,
currently the primary audience for the service.
A sample of all undergraduate, graduate and special students was
obtained from the University of Wisconsin Registrar by WSRL. Since use of the Internet is widespread among
students (see http://www.doit.wisc.edu/research/99student/trends for the 1999
Student Computing Survey), no prescreening was necessary. All students were contacted by phone,
promised an honorarium of $20 for participating, and were given a reminder call
a few days prior to the focus group.
Of the ten (10) students recruited,
eight students (four male, four female) attended the scheduled session. An experienced moderator from the UW-Business
School and an assistant moderator conducted each session. The job of the moderator was to serve as a
leader and guide students through the website according to the client’s
specifications. An assistant moderator
took notes on participant responses.
When students arrived, all
computers’ web browsers were at the “My UW-Madison Community” homepage. After being guided through this site,
participants were asked questions relevant to that website. Then participants were given the URL for “My
UCLA Community” and told to peruse that site, after which they were asked to
compare and contrast that site to UW’s.
See Appendix A for the questions.
Summary
1. Overall, student participants found “My UW-Madison
Community” a very valuable service and were anxious to know when it would be
offered on campus. In general, the
consolidation of student web sites and campus services was considered to be
useful.
2. Participants found the website easy to navigate, professional and cleaner in its layout. By contrast, “My UCLA” was a bit cluttered, though the graphics and pictures considerably brightened up their page. “My UW-Madison Community” could benefit from decreasing white space (which would--by the way-- result from adding more hyperlinks) and increasing the graphical dynamic of the page.
3. Many suggestions were offered for improving the UW site, including but not limited to:
links to online registration
access to student academic and
financial aid records
possible links to the UW-Credit Union
links to the text rental and sales,
as well as the Tech Store and Help Desk
links to health and recreation
services.
4. Students did voice reservations about the site’s usefulness if faculty and departments did not embrace this new technology. The feeling was that administrative buy-in was necessary to take advantage of the service’s strengths. Participants seemed generally interested in e-commerce possibilities, within reason, and very few students voiced any security concerns about such a site.
Findings
Usefulness of service
Students tended to think the idea of
having a personal website was a very useful idea, especially for declared
majors and individuals who might not be computer savvy, both of which would
benefit from the consolidation of relevant websites and student services.
There were some reservations about
the service though. These included how
it would benefit undeclared majors, since many of the services offered on the
“My UW-Madison Community” prototype were specific to a Joan Student, a declared
Zoology major. Another potential
obstacle to its usefulness was whether faculty and administration would adopt
the service. One participant from the
Law School said that he had seen similar initiatives not live up to their
promise because of the reluctance of faculty to comprehensively buy-in to and
consistently use the technology There
was the perception that the service would be less useful unless faculty and
departments used the service, allowing it to link to individual departmental
web functions.
Finally, the only mention of the
“Community” header was negative, with one participant offering that they would
not use this particular area very often.
Advantage of service
The responses to this question
largely mirrored those above, with one reiteration being that this type of
personalized service is really nice and makes a large university like UW “feel
a bit smaller.” Some participants
suggested adding services such as:
linked online registration
a link to the online campus directory
a link to EASI or some other service
through which they could check their grades
The only security concerns were
voiced about students who would be accessing this service through the InfoLab
computers, that their data might be susceptible to tampering if they did not
log off. Otherwise, students seemed very
comfortable with the idea of having so much personal information online and at
their disposal. Students unanimously
agreed that the sign-on was clear and easy.
Graphics, Layout and
Navigability
Generally students thought the UW
site was easily navigable, though it contained a lot of white space, especially
on the right side of the page. Compared
to the UW site, which a few participants said looked “more professional,”
neater and cleaner, many students commented that the UCLA site was cluttered
and a bit of information overload. There
was no consensus on which site was laid out better: many participants said that they liked the
fact that all of the services at the UCLA site were listed and easily
available. For example, if one was
looking for a particular link or service on the UW site, that person would have
to check under each heading to see if/where the service existed. However, many participants also said they
liked the fact that the UW site consolidated its services under headings, and
cut down on clutter. This is somewhat
puzzling, because the UW site does list its services under appropriate
headings. It seems that participants
enjoyed the number of unique services listed on the UCLA site, but like the UW
site’s organization somewhat better.
One participant said he did not like
the fact that the UCLA site opened a separate window every time he clicked on a
link. Yet another said that he liked the
pop-up windows because he could quickly return to the “My UCLA” homepage when
he wanted.
A few participants noted that the
UCLA site had many pictures, graphics and a more “lightened up” look to the
service as a whole, and suggested the same for the UW site. One complaint voiced by one participant and
echoed by the other students was that the UW graphic (placed below each of the
three “community” headings, and shown here) was completely unintelligible:
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Improvements and Comparisons
While initial reactions to the UW site were few and
somewhat reserved, this may have been because of the limited nature of the
prototype. That is, the students had to
imagine how some of the extant services would apply to them, and to further
imagine all of the possibilities such a service afforded. After surfing the UCLA site for five to ten
minutes, participants were able to generate many more ideas for improvements to
the “My UW-Madison Community” site.
Among the ideas generated by students for improving the
UW site:
While
many of the students were not actually aware of how to go about creating a
student web page, they thought that this site would be a good place to expose
students to this possibility.
“My
UCLA” had a virtual counseling link where students could contact and talk with
faculty and counselors. One participant
noted the health services link in particular and suggested the UW site provide
similar services.
A
number of participants noted that they liked the UCLA site’s listings of
sports, recreation, concerts, etc.
The
Madison site should have links to the computing center (Tech Store) and the UW
Bookstore.
The
Madison site should have links to textbook rental/purchase companies.
“My
UCLA” had real-time chat, one respondent noted.
She then said she would not use such a service, but that others might.
“My
UW-Madison Community” should make available student loan status, as well as
connections to the UW-Credit Union. Two
participants noted that “My UCLA” had links to banks or credit unions. In general, e-commerce links would be useful,
but one participant (the Law student) said the UW-Madison needs to be careful
about endorsing certain companies on their site.
One
participant suggested having links to the student newspapers.
Perhaps
because of the publicized success of online voting in the UW’s latest student
elections, one participant suggested that online voting for student government
be a possible feature for the UW site.
The Name
Students were not particularly brilliant or verbose in
coming up with new names, but did agree that the current name is too long. Some suggestions were to shorten it to “My
UW” or “My UW-Madison,” as UCLA appears to have done.
Conclusion
Several of the participants inquired when “My UW-Madison
Community” would be offered to students, such was the interest in this
service. We explained this was a
prototype and would likely take quite a while before it was up and running, and
that participants were told that they should not tell their friends or
roommates about this website.
Appendix A
Evaluation questions for “My UW-Madison Community”
1. How useful would a website
such as this be to you as a student? How
useful do you think such a website would be to other students? In what ways is it useful or not useful?
2. As a UW-Madison student how
much of an advantage is it to be provided with personalized information and
services such as this example? What is
desirable or undesirable about such a service?
3. Was the sign-on clear?
4. What other features for
linking to information and services would you like available on such a
site? How easy is it to navigate through
the site?
5. Do you have any comments on
the graphics or layout of the site?
6. We will be changing the
name. Do you have any suggestions?
Evaluation questions for “My UCLA Community”
1. After looking at this site,
what additional features would you like to see offered on the UW-Madison
site? Or are there features you would
like to see on the UW site that you saw on the UCLA site? What are these?
2. Which of the two sites did
you like better? Why?