UX Research
Using Eye-tracking data to understand how perspective undergrad students would use the newly designed Pratt Institute website.
The Pratt Institute is a prestigious art and design school located in Brooklyn, New York. The school offers a range of undergraduate programs, including fine arts, industrial design, and fashion design.
With this collaboration, Pratt Institute wanted to analyze how effectively prospective undergrad students navigate the website and apply for admission at the institute.
We used moderated usability testing with eye-tracking technology on the desktop website to identify user pain points and recommended four hot fixes that focused on improving navigation, discoverability, taxonomy, and restructuring content.
After speaking with the stakeholders, we learned that the redesign of the website was intended to make the website more visually appealing and engaging, using a storytelling narrative. The main goal was to use the website as a marketing tool to attract prospective students to the Pratt Institute.
However, there were concerns that students might struggle to follow the application process. Based on this information, we established the project's goals and objectives, which in turn helped us to draft our research questions.
We opted for moderated usability tests on the desktop website, using Tobii Pro Lab as the eye-tracking tool. This allowed us to track participants' eye movements and collect data on their user experience using the System Usability Scale and Retrospective Think Aloud method.
The data visualized by Tobii Pro Lab included Gaze replays and Heat and Gaze maps, which helped us analyze how participants interacted with the website.
The target demographic for this study included
We recruited a total of 6 undergraduate and 2 graduate participants who met the specified criteria. I moderated sessions with one undergraduate and one graduate international student.
To help answer our research questions, I helped in drafting tasks for users to perform on the website.
I synthesized the data from the Retrospective Think Aloud Method and System Usability Score to report overall performance and key insights.
"Liked the images on the Undergraduate Admission page. It shows the life at Pratt."
Key Findings 1A
Overall, from our analysis, we found that the Important information regarding programs and applications is not easily discoverable.
All 8 of our participants failed to find details on the program duration.
Participants in the study quickly skimmed through large text boxes and missed important information due to the excessive visual and cognitive load.
“The huge block of text gets me immediately disinterested”
Inconsistencies in content across program pages affect the discoverability of fundamental information
The structure of program pages on the website is consistent, but the inconsistent content adds to the users' cognitive load and reduces the efficiency of the website.
Recommendation
Improve the visibility of key information by making it easily discoverable and consistent on the program's landing screen.
Separately highlighting important information on every program detail page, such as program duration, will help reduce the users' cognitive load.
Key Findings 1B
4 of our participants struggled to find program application requirements.
Since the How to Apply section of the side navigation does not visually signify it’s an accordion, it is not intuitive for the user to click on it to find more information. Additionally, users have to navigate to a new page every time they click on a section to access more content.
“I had trouble with the task of finding application requirements and deadlines.”
Recommendation
Facilitating access to vital content through the accordion will help reduce the users’ motor load. Making each section an accordion will let users browse through and easily access key content thus improving its visibility and accessibility.
Key Findings 2
4 of our participants found it difficult to go back to the pages from where they started browsing the website.
The gaze plots and gaze replays show that participants tried to return to the pages they started from while navigating the website. This caused them to loop between pages, which negatively affected their ability to efficiently navigate and find information on the website.
"The part that I was irritating was that there is no back button"
Recommendation
Using breadcrumbs as secondary navigation aid will help the user easily understand their location on the page and their relation with other pages of the website. Users could easily find their way back, go back a step, or start over which can improve the discoverability of pages on the website.
Key Findings 3
7 of our participants utilized the Programs of Study section on the Homepage to learn about Pratt’s Majors.
The gaze plots show that participants spent a lot of time scanning through Pratt’s programs of study. However, this information is placed last on the homepage. In fact, one participant did not reach this section.
“I thought this [section] would be useful for the next task”
Recommendation
Moving the Programs of Study Section Higher in Homepage Content. The priority of content should determine the order and hierarchy of the homepage. Since programs of study are key information for users to reach when considering applying, this content should be highlighted higher than its current position.
Key Finding 4
5 out of 8 of our participants struggled to interpret the category names from the main navigation.
The gaze plots, a heat map, and feedback showcase that participants find it challenging to differentiate between categories such as Courses and Academics and find them very similar. This causes them to take additional time and visit different pages for finding important information.
“Too many options are given on the navigation bar. There was a lot of repetition”
Recommendation 4
We recommend conducting further analysis and study using methods like Card Sorting and Tree Testing which can be helpful in improving the terminologies and eliminating confusing or similar tabs on the top navigation.
We Presented Our Findings and Recommendations which were a success.
As a final deliverable, we delivered a presentation to the client with our key findings and recommendations. This presentation also included highlight reel from the actual testing, as well as a more in-depth problem list of all of the findings we encountered throughout the study.
While presenting the findings to the client, they expressed that they were not surprised with the issues we uncovered as these issues mapped to the conversations happening with different stakeholders around the campus.
This is just a universal moment of thanks for all the work that we've already seen, because this is a body of work that I think could end up genuinely informing work that we do in the future.-Sarah Hromack, Director of Web and Digital Communications