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University of Minnesota

PROBLEM  This highly ranked university department wanted to increase revenue via departmental donations, and to attract higher levels of student and faculty applicants. 

Having reviewed their site, I proposed research and testing to help raise alumni donations, and to make recommendations toward raising applicant levels.

GOALS  

Ensure that

  • Site and mobile experience is easily navigable to donation pages

  • Donation levels rise after any clarifying navigation updates

RESEARCH METHODS  
 

  • Heat maps

  • Tree- and click-testing

  • Think-aloud studies

  • Competitive and heuristic analyses

  • Stakeholder and user interviews

CONTEXT  Interviewing applicant students and parents,
I learned their interests, information needs and concerns, and from these created tasks to be tested with students and parents. 

SOLUTIONS  Presenting video/audio reactions of visitors’ difficulty with tasks and navigation, the department approved navigation changes. I also provided personas of the most important audiences in order to remind the department of needed information to remain populated on their site/s, to keep their most important audiences engaged with content they continue to publish. 

Click Testing and Site Map 

Testing around a department goal to increase donations, and seeing a 50% fail rate finding the donation link,

I recommended changes on the page which resulted in 100% success in testing. I continued click testing
other page flows in the site, and made edits to their current site map.

Site Map, Prototypes, Content Strategy

Created for stakeholders to help guide their content publishing to match users goals heard in resesarch. 

Think-aloud Studies

 With parents and students, I ran some think-aloud studies as they

surveyed the department site. Concerns ranged beyond what stakeholders 

addressed on their site, which they later added.

Think-aloud Studies

 With parents and students, I ran some think-aloud studies as they

surveyed the department site. Concerns ranged beyond what stakeholders 

addressed on their site, which they later added.

User and Stakeholder Interviews

 With parents and students, I ran some think-aloud studies as they

surveyed the department site. Concerns ranged beyond what stakeholders 

addressed on their site, which they later added xyz.

User and Stakeholder Interviews

 In interviews with users (stakeholders, undergrad students, prospective students, .graduate students
parents of students, industry professionals, alumni) I learned of content they sought, but did not find, and so

delivered proposed edits throughout the site. 

User and Stakeholder Interviews

 With parents and students, I ran some think-aloud studies as they

surveyed the department site. Concerns ranged beyond what stakeholders 

addressed on their site, which they later added xyz.

Personas

 IIntegrating all research I'd done with the department's most important audiences led
me to create personas. The largest audience was students searching for the top performing ChemE departments,
so that Undergrad (revenue-producing) persona is shown below.

Outcome

 The department site remains with its donation links right up top, per my initial recommendation..

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