Website Redesign of UT International Office.

CONCEPT

In the course Design Thinking, our class worked as a team to help the international office of UT-Austin redesign their website. Our goal was to strengthen brand recognition, improve its information architecture and enhance the user experience. The ideal product would be responsive, and we designed for self-service to allow users to perform tasks without external assistance. We also attempted to increase engagement by adding desirable features.

PROJECT GOALS

Process
FINDINGS

RESEARCH PHASE 1

web analytics

Web Analytics

Tree test

Tree Test

Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic Evaluation

Student Survey

Student Survey

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis

Advisory Survey

Advisory Survey

DESIGN PHASE 1

We reviewed the findings in Research Phase One and provided two versions of IA redesign (used-based and task-based). The research team would go through further usability testing on these two alternatives for comparison in efficiency.

User Based

Task Based

Our team created low fidelity wireframes for two versions of IA. The one to the left is the IA version I created in Balsamiq. We compared our designs and discussed together the best way to finalize the output.

RESEARCH PHASE 2

User-based or Task-based?

The usability team conducted the tree test again on the two versions of IA (task-based & user-based), using the same tasks designed in Research phase 1 that tested the draft International Office provided. It turns out that:

  • User-based IA : 30% increase in SUCCESS, 14% increase in DIRECTNESS;
  • Task-based IA : 17% increase in SUCCESS, 4% increase in DIRECTNESS. (compared to the draft)

    • User-based wins!

    DESIGN PHASE 2

    My team was responsible for the design of the International Office homepage, and other class groups were redesigning the unit landing pages.