Website DESIGN
PROJECT OVERVIEW
This project was discussed during the CAPE Team meeting, I learned that the department is currently undertaking website development, and all sections on the website, including the blog that I managed, should be re-designed for better user-experience.
Monthly updates webpage is one of the main section in the blog that has received complains from graduate students that it is too long to read. I realized the need of improving the monthly updates webpage.
Team Individual project
My role Brainstorming, research, Google Analytics, website design, HTML & CSS
Context A three-week intern project in 2019
PROBLEMS
The previous monthly website was long and updated every month along with the monthly email sent to graduate students. In the focus group Tomke (International Graduate Student Coordinator) conduct, graduate students were asked about their experiences of using the department’s website and accessing the resource and information. They mentioned the information on the monthly updates page is helpful but it is too long to read that they give up reading. In this way, it proves that access to information is not efficient.
Previous - Menu Design
MENU
The previous webpage was arranged into index, it lists all sections below for students to jump to the right section that they are interested in. However, it lists so many of them that it becomes text-heavy and some sections are inter-connected, which causes confusion. In this way, I designed a static menu bar that only listed four categories.
Current - Menu Design
CHALLENGE
The challenge is to sort all these sections and categories them into groups. I eliminated some redundant content and shortened some into links for students to visit the corresponding website so that they could get the most accurate and latest updates.
Previous - Content Example
Current - Content Example
FEEDBACK
After designing the website, our Communications Officer created a survey for graduate students to provide feedback on the new design. Over 70% of the participants were satisfied with the current design, content, way of access, length and interactivity with the email. Many were especially happy with the shorter length of information on the website and the easy access of information.
MAIN ADVANTAGES
The main advantages of this new design for the monthly updates pages:
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URL of the page stays the same instead of creating a new webpage (new URL) every month to announce updates.
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Clear categories with shorter section information
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Emphasizes the important content in the new layout so that students would be less likely to miss it
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Highlight student profiles and their research for future recruitment and current students to expand connections and build community.
PROJECT EVALUATION
From this project, I learned the importance of conducting interviews with users to learn about their experiences of accessing information from the website. Not only the interview is essential to hear their frustrations before the design, the survey created after the design is also important to evaluate the efficiency of the updates.
