Redesign
Buckeyelink
Client
The Ohio State University
Team Role
UX Designer
Problem Statement
The current course scheduling process is not at all self-evident nor self explanatory and involves too many disconnected resources. The surface plane is harsh and off-putting while the structural plane is overly complex for the functionality and users it serves.
Background
Buckeyelink is OSU’s main site for students to navigate their courses, tuition payments, and item deadlines. The main objective is to provide access to clear and reliable student account information.
Individual roles were assigned upon team formation, however as the project unfolded, responsibilities shifted based on strengths and experience. Interface construction was split evenly amongst team members, however my prior experience with Adobe, specifically with Illustrator and XD, made me a capable art/branding design lead as well as an efficient co-editor toward the end of the semester.
My Task
Issues
There were glaring inconsistencies in theme and styling across webpages and information architecture is confusing and unintuitive
Solution
We decided to streamline necessary processes by incorporating branch steps, e.g. the Course Look-Up, Cart, and Schedule Planner into a direct, user-friendly sequence of steps.
Research I
Survey
The majority of Buckeyelink’s users are students ranging from incoming freshmen to graduating seniors. All of which have varying levels of familiarity with the site. As such, we decided to pursue information on user needs and expectations for the university scheduling process through online surveys.
The most significant issues we identified in our original analysis of the My Buckeyelink course scheduling process had to do with problematic information architecture. The online survey was developed as a means of uncovering systemic issues that we may not yet have considered.
University Public Site
Current Buckeyelink
Sample Questions
Extended Research
Further research would have included a larger open-ended portion, placed at the beginning of the survey so as to reduce bias based on the provided closed questioning.
Time permitting, the team would also have conducted observational studies of stakeholders interacting with the site.
The survey was mainly multiple-choice questions with a single open-ended response at the end.
Findings
The majority of Buckeyelink’s users are students ranging from incoming freshmen to graduating seniors. All of which have varying levels of familiarity with the site. As such, we decided to pursue information on user needs and expectations for the university scheduling process through online surveys.
The most significant issues we identified in our original analysis of the My Buckeyelink course scheduling process had to do with problematic information architecture. The online survey was developed as a means of uncovering systemic issues that we may not yet have considered.
Navigation
Those who participated in the survey wanted improvement in the navigation of the site itself and for the visual standards to match with the current Ohio State theme. These changes are on track with what we initially intended for our website redesign, however we are missing crucial information from incoming students that may need to use buckeyelink to enroll.
Client Navigation
To better improve site navigation and layout we asked our audience what their main tasks are on buckeyelink. We found that the average user uses buckeyelink for multiple tasks throughout the year with two main tasks being used more than others, Scheduling Classes and Degree Auditing. With these results it shows that there should be an emphasis placed on these two tasks in order to help individuals navigate faster and more efficiently.
Prototyping
Buckeyelink Layout
Wireframes
The main issues the team identified in “My Buckeyelink” had to do with low site self-evidence due to a lack of continuity. With this in mind, our site redesign focuses heavily on standardizing site structure across pages, thus increasing site cohesion.
The external buckeyelink site has a central scrolling structure with collapsible overarching categories that, when selected, expand to show more specific subcategories/actions. Our team decided to implement this organizational strategy into our internal “my buckeyelink” redesign.
We decided on 4 major categories: Finances, Scheduling, Account Info, and Academic Planner. Across our redesign, collapsible categories like these make up the main page content on the left side of the page space, along with a top navigation bar for easy movement throughout the site and a side bar for potentially useful miscellaneous information pertinent to the page.
Home
Class Search
My Schedule
Research II
After producing our earliest redesign prototypes, the team conducted a number of usability tests.
Usability Testing
Moderator Intro Test Script
“Welcome to our usability testing for BuckeyeLink. We redesigned the BuckeyeLink for an easier navigation and simpler skeleton/surface plane for our users and would like to hear your thoughts and opinions in regards to your user experience. Please listen to our instructions and don’t proceed to do anything else until we ask you to do so. Thank you for your participation and feedback.”
Moderator Closing Test Script
“As a team, we would like to thank you for your time and willingness to participate in our usability testing on our BuckeyeLink redesign website.
Thank you."
Background Questions
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Student status (year)
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What is your major?
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When you go onto BuckeyeLink, where do you usually navigate to?
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Do you feel BuckeyeLink can be improved?
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What specifically do you wish to see in the redesign?
Debriefing Questions
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How do you feel after navigating through the site?
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What was your experience like?
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If you could change one thing to improve the site, what would it be?
Takeaways
- Better organized than the previous site
- Easy to Navigate some tasks
- Login options provided earlier
- More efficient
- Aesthetic flow and continuity
- Low legibility
- Lack of headers across all pages
- Location Consistency
- broken links
Strengths
Weaknesses
Final Product
High Fidelity Wireframes
The usability tests run by our team confirmed our hypotheses--the disconnected branding between buckeyelink and the public website caused confusion among users. These findings encouraged us to continue forward with our site redesign plan, placing special focus on standardizing site structure across pages. Buttons in the top navigation bar were also highlighted in the University’s signature scarlet, which our team used as an accent element to create emphasis and increase cross-platform cohesion.
The collapsible central scrolling structure in our original was put to much greater use than initially expected as it helped to deftly condense and organize unexpectedly
large amounts of information.
Home
Class Search
Class Search