Project Overview

I had an amazing opportunity to work with UBC’s UX Lab as part of my university’s Student Communications Services. My first project was on a multidisciplinary team of five students, where we tested the usability of UBC’s blog website. My second project was done solo with the help of my mentor, where I created a journey map of student career development at UBC.

We were interested in testing the awareness, perception, and categorization of the UBC blog website.

My role in this project was a UX Researcher in a multidisciplinary team of 5 students.

Research Questions

• Are students aware of the blog?

• What are the perceptions or expectations students have of the blog?

Research Plan

We conducted a two-part study:

1. Awareness and Perception

2. Categorization

Testing

1. Awareness and Perception

   3-part usability study:

   1. Pre-test questionnaire

   2. Think-aloud test

   3. Post-test questionnaire

2. Categorization

   Used Optimal Workshop to conduct 2 card sorting studies: an open card sort and a hybrid card sort

   Used results from first open card sort to determine categories for second hybrid card sort

Results

1. Awareness and Perception

   Through analyzing responses from our 36 participants, we determined that there was a lack of awareness of the blog page. There was also confusion about its function, the layout of the page, and the navigation. We suggested steps to resolve these issues, and reiterated the importance of the categorization study.

2. Categorization

   After processing 110 responses, we shortlisted 5-7 categories to present to the Student Communications Services (SCS) team.