{"id":3308,"date":"2018-06-12T14:44:37","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/?p=3308"},"modified":"2018-06-13T09:36:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T08:36:33","slug":"user-testing-summary-kbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/2018\/06\/12\/user-testing-summary-kbs\/","title":{"rendered":"User testing summary &#8211; KBS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">We received feedback from students about the school <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/kbs\">pilot site for KBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We had individual sessions with four students which included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a discussion about their decision to study at Kent<\/li>\n<li>getting their first impressions on the new design<\/li>\n<li>testing key tasks on the website<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Choosing to study<\/h2>\n<p>During our discussions, key reasons for choosing to study were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>rankings (investigated on 3rd party websites)<\/li>\n<li>recommendation from friends and teachers<\/li>\n<li>location and centralised campus<\/li>\n<li>easy access to London<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>\u201cLeague tables were very important to me\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cTeachers, friends and college advisors helped me pick\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI like the fact that it was all on campus\u201d<\/em><em><br \/>\n<\/em><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>First impressions and brand impact<\/h2>\n<p>In order to gauge the impact the design had on the perception of the school, we asked the students to give a rating of 1 to 10 (10 highest) on various criteria of the old and new homepage designs and then discussed their reasons.<\/p>\n<p>This included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>initial impact<\/li>\n<li>dynamic and modern environment<\/li>\n<li>leading research<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Average ratings across different criteria were 6.4 for the old design and 7.5 for the new design implying an improved perception from the new design.<\/p>\n<p>The previous design had already included some of the new design elements, so the contrast wasn\u2019t as stark as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/2017\/12\/06\/user-testing-summary-sport-and-exercise-sciences\/\">other school pilot testing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cmore modern\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt breaks it down easier for me\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Tasks<\/h2>\n<p>Starting from the homepage, we asked participants to perform key tasks to ensure that they could navigate easily around the site and find what they needed.<\/p>\n<h3>Finding a course<\/h3>\n<p>They usually skipped the introductory text on the course pages, generally no issues interacting with filters and finding a course.<\/p>\n<p>Some used the central course search showing that it is good that we have a range of different ways to find courses.<\/p>\n<h3>Learning about research<\/h3>\n<p>No problem navigating to the research page. Research in context on the course pages would be good.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIf we see too much writing, we just ignore it\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Finding a staff profiles\/supervisor<\/h3>\n<p>Likely to use global search or people link<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cReally nice\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Learning about scholarships<\/h3>\n<p>Students found the content via course link. One spotted the link on the footer. Ultimately they all found scholarships information.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the scholarships finder: \u201chard to know which ones are for you, a bit confusing\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>About<\/h3>\n<p>Student profiles were seen as a trusted way to learn about the school.<\/p>\n<h3>Learning about student life<\/h3>\n<p>Student profiles were popular. They liked seeing student profiles.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cGood to hear from different students\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSeeing pictures really helps you as you can imagine yourself there\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Learning about facilities<\/h3>\n<p>Facilities were easily found and explored. One student particularly loved Sibson.<\/p>\n<h3>Visiting the school<\/h3>\n<p>No issues finding either visit or contact link.<\/p>\n<h3>Learning about the MBA<\/h3>\n<p>Easily found and liked the visual presentation of the page.<\/p>\n<h3>Career and support options<\/h3>\n<p>All students went to the course page and found the careers tab. Student\/alumni profiles, stories and testimonials are also good ways to expose support and career options. Users expected to see careers information on the relevant course page.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion and highlights<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Decision to study<\/strong> &#8211; often the surrounding detail would have already been researched via 3rd-party sites and decisions made due to league tables, recommendations from friends, family or advisors or the practicality of location.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Impact<\/strong> &#8211; overall the new design had a higher rating. The first two students responded more strongly, whereas the second two were less concerned. This was not a huge shift likely because the previous design already had elements similar to the new design.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key tasks achieved <\/strong>&#8211; such as finding a course or searching for a staff profile, were completed easily &#8211; no obvious usability issues found.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Student profiles\/stories popular<\/strong> &#8211; use stories and profiles of students to communicate student experience and future prospects &#8211; they resonated strongly. Videos and impactful imagery were popular.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scholarships finder needs improvement <\/strong>&#8211; the scholarships finder can be confusing and inconsistent. The design and display of the content needs to be reviewed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Careers content at a course level <\/strong>&#8211; details about career options were looked for at a course level in relation to what a prospect wishes to study.<\/p>\n<p>Related information is expected to be found in the context of the course pages, such as careers, scholarships and profiles. Opportunities to improve course pages add value across all schools.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We received feedback from students about the school pilot site for KBS. We had individual sessions with four students which included: a discussion about their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/2018\/06\/12\/user-testing-summary-kbs\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17235,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79395,79439],"tags":[79487,79484,79459],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3308"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3333,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308\/revisions\/3333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}