UIUCollab
We were tasked with finalizing the high-fidelity prototypes and performing user testability research to assess the effectiveness of the platform.
Role
UX Researcher
Tools & Skills
Figma, UX Research, Usability Testing
Timeline
Jan 2022 - May 2022
Team
Nancy, Emily, Priya, Kalyn
Illinois Design Consulting 2022
UIUCollab is a platform meant to bridge together people of all disciplines, interests, and social backgrounds. Think of it as a LinkedIn for academic endeavors! We strive to provide the UIUC community with opportunities for networking, growing passion for various subjects, and friendship building.
Overview
About the platform
Our Process
Identify Potential Users
Actively sought candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, in demographics and research focus, to ensure inclusivity in design
Connected with a diverse group of interviewees, ranging from PhD students to Associate Professors
Conduct Interviews
2-on-1, 30-minute interviews via Zoom
Candidates completed 5 different navigation tasks for our hi-fi prototype
Success tracked by ease of task completion and qualitative interviewee feedback
Synthesize Insights
Grouped insights using affinity mapping
Went feature-by-feature to analyze design effectiveness
Afterwards, broke down our main challenges into 4 key questions to dive deeper into
Professors
Students
We interviewed…
In addition to academic roles, we also recruited users from various disciplines. These disciplines include: business, psychology, dance, graphic design, information science and more.
6
2
USER INTERVIEWS
Task 0: What are your thoughts on the onboarding process? How well does it assess your interests and collaboration styles?
Task 1: Find the Network Visualization.
Task 2: Find out how to post an opportunity. Then, navigate how to “Add a Description” to said opportunity.
Task 3: Find out what one of Rebecca Ginsberg’s interests are.
Task 4: Find out who is leading the “Diaspora and Border Racial Justice Youth Project”.
Task 5: Find the “Women in Academia” group
Task 6: Find out how you could register to attend the “Intro to Design Thinking” event.
Before we began interviewing, we generated a list of tasks and questions that would assess how seamless the navigation is and how valuable the features are to users.
Exit Questions
How frequently do you think you would use an application like this?
What is working / not working? / What did you like/dislike about this product?
What do you think could be improved to make this more user-friendly and engaging?
Can you tell that this sites are UIUC-affiliated?
Task 1: 5 out of 8 users were able to find the network visualization on the home page.
Task 2: 5 out of 8 users found out how to post a research opportunity and add a description for it. One user only had trouble finding the “Add a description.”
Task 3: 7 out of 8 users were able to find out what Rebecca Ginsberg’s interests were.
Task 4: 6 out of 8 users were able to find out who was leading the “Diaspora and Border Racial Justice Youth” project.
Task 5: 7 out of 8 users were able to find the “Women in Academia” group.
Task 6: 5 out of 8 users were able to find out how to register to attend the “Intro to Design Thinking” event.
During our interviews, we encouraged our users to apply the “Think Aloud” method so that we understand their thought process on the navigation and features of the platform. We considered task completion as a success if the user did not require any help to complete the task.
Overall, the users performed the tasks fairly easily and thought the platform was very easy to navigate. However, they had more feedback on the features themselves, rather than the navigation.
“It would be nice to refresh and connect with new people. Filter systems are helpful.”
“What you teach and what you work on might be different.”
“Being able to have tags for both interest areas and the discipline you’re in would be nice.”
“You might want to include names to go with people icon for accessibility.”
How might we make the terminology more clear and consistent across the platform?
How might we balance exclusivity and transparency within the platform’s interest groups?
How might we create different avenues of accessing information so that the navigation becomes more seamless?
How might we make the experience more customized for our users?
Using an affinity map, we grouped together the quotes and insights from our interviews. By doing so, we were able to visualize high-priority friction points with our prototype and determine our “How Might We” questions.
Threshold Feature
The threshold feature allows users to access information in different ways. Not being able to customize content was a common pain point. Here, users can adjust how broad or narrow they want their content to be.
Filter System
Similar to the threshold feature, the new filter system allows users to filter what projects they would like to see. Because UIUCollab is meant for such a broad audience, it is important for our users to find the research projects they are genuinely interested in.
Conducting a thorough redesign of the prototype was out of our project scope. However, we generated a few design suggestions that help address our established HMW questions.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS & HOW MIGHT WE Q’S
DESIGN REVISIONS
TAKEAWAYS
This project was my first time tackling usability testing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process! The most striking part of this process was realizing how flawed our designs can be. We spend so much time staring at the same designs that we often stray from the user’s wants and needs.
I also learned how important it was to look at the design process as nonlinear. It requires iteration: going back to the research and synthesis stages, ideating and prototyping, and repeating this process until you have an outstanding product.
Though applying our user testability insights to the prototype was out of our project scope, I would have loved to take part in revising the UIUCollab prototype given the new insights. Overall, this was a thought-provoking and challenging experience that I am continuing to cultivate my skills.