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A public research institution founded in 1910, Kent State University (KSU) is the largest university in Ohio operating seven regional campuses with additional teaching facilities in: Cleveland, New York City, Paris FR, and Florence IT. The enrollment has over 41,000 students and is ranked as in the top 100 research facilities in the US and also as one of the top 200 universities in the world with over 300 degree programs, 50 master degree programs and 23 doctorial programs of study. This execution was part of my UX graduate school master's program projects.
This study looked at the registration web portal site that all students must navigate to register for class. The target audience for this site includes all of the 41,000 students who attend the University but also the 6,800 administrative staff and the 2,600 academic staff. This study focused on these 41,000 student-users as they work the site on a periodic or semester basis to enroll. They are not the “power users” who navigate the site daily but instead use it on periodically to assemble their school schedule and on a task-needed basis. They rely on ease of initial use and memory recall when accessing the site as this group is most often untrained on the system but also much rely on it to get their tasks done on a semester basis.
To evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the site, a Heuristic evaluation was done by a small group of evaluators. This group was made of 5 individuals all of whom has personal contact with the system in order to sign up for the semester. This group was comprised of grad students so they also had some experience with a previous (competitors) institutions enrollment process from their undergrad education. This group was also considered more seasoned professionals in that they fell into two camps: Marketing management and Design. All were exceptionally well adept at working online and with online education.
The registration website needed to accomplish many things besides register students. As a brand voice for the school, it needed to inspire, inform and help those looking to complete some level of higher education. The results proved it could use a cosmetic overhaul as well as a prioritizing of information, content revision and a severe editing to make it more user friendly. While everyone currently uses the system, it does not mean it is well liked as it is tolerated to get to the end goal (graduation). Ultimately, it could do more with less. By comparing the mean vs the median and analysis of the qualitative information gathered, we got a clear understanding of the website and how people view it after interaction.
The finished summary was written in a form that made it clear with what was said and what was unsaid. Along with the requested supporting data and benchmarks were the comments and feedback that at times was pretty scathing or blunt.
