The University of Sydney - Usability report
The Challenge
The team behind the service portal needed my help to identify if the newly redesigned portal fit the 5 principles of UX design though a usability report. Although the university had undergone a portal redesign, users still faced significant challenges:
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Overcoming the stigma of a previously complex system.
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Navigating an interface that remained non-intuitive.
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Differentiating between an array of similar-looking articles.
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Addressing other nuanced issues such as icon discrepancies, search limitations, and unoptimised status pages.
Role
Senior Product Designer (contract)
Timeline
38 Hours
Company
The University of Sydney
One of the top universities in Sydney, Australia, and is ranked in the top 20 universities in the world.
Tools
Figjam, Google suite, Flex Clip, Canva
"I usually just sit and call up HR to find out all of my questions, the service portal is just too confusing"
Research and Discovery
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User Interviews: Gathered insights from different types of users who have used the portal and havent used the portal before randing from students, professors to HR and asked them to complete a series of tasks.
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User Surveys: Carried out surveys for the university.
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User Shadowing: Observed user interactions with the service portal.
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Self Discovery and analysis: Logged into the portal myself and tried to carry out basic tasks
Organising and Classifying Research Results:
Data Collection: A mix of qualitative feedback from interviews and quantitative data from tools like heat maps was collated.
Data Sorting: Initial sorting categorised feedback based on interaction type - navigational challenges, content clarity, feature functionality, and design feedback.
Matching with UX Principles: Feedback was mapped to the five UX principles, ensuring a structured approach to identifying issues and areas for enhancement.
Creating and presenting the report
After writing up the main talking points I moved this over to a more digestible report. I had various meetings with the stakeholders and walked them through what I was going to present before I presented it to their head of faculty. To create the report I used Canva.
