Pitt Social Work Website UX Study
A User Research project completed for Pitt’s School of Social Work as updates were made to the school’s website.
Background
This project presents a usability and accessibility report on the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work website. Commissioned by Shannon Murphy, Director of Marketing and Communication, the report offers critical insights to guide site updates and improve user experience as the School of Social Work made updates to its website.
Project Roles
UX Researcher, Technical Writer
Skills
UX Research, Technical Writing
Final Report
Our final report consisted of a written report, a separate spreadsheet containing our heuristic evaluation findings, and a slideshow presentation to present to our peers. The slideshow presentation contained our recommendations, methodology, and conclusions.
Qualitative Interviews
To evaluate the usability of the website and identify its flaws and benefits, we had five students engage with three separate scenarios with three types of questions (behavioral, emotional, reflective) to understand the challenges users are facing when engaging with popular user flows.
Scenario 1: Pretend you are a Master’s of Social Work student looking for a specific course of study (MSW DP - Mental Health Certificate):
Walk me through the steps you took to find details about the MSW DP - Mental Health Certificate on the Pitt Social Work website. What challenges did you face? (Behavioral
What were you feeling as you navigated through this site? (Emotional)
What aspects of the navigation process do you find intuitive, and where do you think there could be improvements? (Reflective)
Scenario 2: Discover undergraduate student organizations within the School of Social Work:
What area/navigation tab were you first drawn to? (Behavioral)
Did you feel more confused/annoyed or engaged/pleased with the discovery process? (Emotional)
Do you think any aspects of the website you used could have better clarity to allow for easier discovery? (Reflective)
Scenario 3: Begin at the home page and navigate until you can find information about scholarships and fellowships for the MSW (Master’s Program):
Could you describe the steps you took to find information about scholarships and fellowships on the Pitt social work website, starting from the home page? How did you assess your eligibility for each opportunity? (Behavioral)
How would the availability of financial support impact your perception of pursuing a Master’s degree in social work at Pitt? (Emotional)
What strategies do you employ to locate information about scholarships and fellowships, and how do you prioritize your search? (Reflective)
Design Heuristic Evaluation
After conducting interviews, our team created a design heuristic using Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics. To perform our accessibility tests, we used Chrome Extensions such as ScreenReader to read text from the screen aloud, Lighthouse to provide a report with scores on the accessibility, performance, and best practices of the website, and ChromeLens to stimulate different visual impairments.