US Dept of Education
Website Redesign
The Problem:
The US Department of Education site lacks ease of use, cohesiveness, and all-around way too much detail to take in.
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The Solution:
The product we produced helps the Department of Education accomplish student success and academic competitiveness by providing detailed and easily accessible content that makes students of any age feel successful or knowledgeable. They can easily on their own accomplish access to grants and more information about the collegiate schools.
Other Team Members
Karen & Christine
My Role:
Research Design and Presentation
The Process
Research
We started our research with card sorting and trying to understand the user flow for accessing grant information. Because this site is so heavy with information, we knew immediately we would need to condense the information and make a clear path for any sort of action.
Usability Test:
Task:
Please locate the following
1. Homepage
2. Grants
3. Apply for grants
User 1: User 1 started out strong but had some trouble completing the tasks due to the over saturation of information and links. When he was going through he noticed that there were links for almost every section and not enough description on where to go next. Due to this he ended up on the wrong pages which caused the failure of the task.
User 2: User 2 had a little more luck but also had a little more direction. I approached this user a little differently since the first user test did not turn out to be successful. User 2 was able to finish the tasks but did get stuck on a couple different sections, saying that the overwhelming information made it hard to focus on where she needed to go next.
Results:
Due to the lack of Sub Navigation within the Main navigation and our first user test, we found that we had enough information to forego the Usability Testing on the Navigation. We feel that we will be able to successfully create new navigation.
User Persona
Our user, Ethan, is a high school student who is looking for ways to help his mother pay for his college tuition. He accesses ed.gov to see if there is any information on grants and general eligibility to obtain them. If he is eligible, he will go ahead and apply for such grants.
User Flow
Based on Usability testing, we created easy-to-use navigation that utilizes a sub-navigation. This will allow users to see all options available for that section of the site.
Lofi Prototype
We created a simple prototype that features drop-down style navigation and a hover underline to show where your curser is.
User Testing
The usability testing turned out to be the most useful part of this process since we got very important feedback from everyone. The general consensus was that the Mission statement needed to be easier to find and understand. Additionally, accessibility was something we were lacking and adjusted accordingly.
Omar
Likes color usage, mission statement difficult to find, nice aesthetic.
Emily
Space links out on mission statement, check alignment on contacts
Bonnie
Mission Statement more obvious, Check ADA
Skyler
Found it a little difficult to touch the menu but everything else looked nice
Davis
Enjoyed the clean design, understood the purpose of the website
Paige
Likes the logo, understands the website shes on, easy to read, pictures help, doesn’t like the - as the bullet points
Kelly
Did not like the bullet points in the mission statement, suggested pictures behind the 4 categories in the mission statement like on the homepage
Shayan
Change color of CTA bc blends in with logo, make menu 3 bars, "Why am i on this site", move "subscribe to email" up
Iterations
Style Guide
Final Prototype
Our final prototype exemplifies what we think would be perfect for The US Department of Education. The mission is clear and the information is organized in a thoughtful way with the users in mind.
What's Next
1. Designing Mobile First! I learned really quickly that it is much easier to convert to the web than to convert to mobile. This will be really useful in future work.
2. Make sure your user tests include people outside of the cohort. I made sure to mix in tests of my friends, who are just the everyday user and I got some very useful usability information from them that was not designer-focused.
3. Teamwork! I really enjoyed my team and we all pulled equal weight which was very nice and helpful for this redesign. Our strengths definitely complimented everyone’s weaknesses.