Thursday, April 07, 2005
UW website usability study
I just got $10 for surfing the UW website for 20 minutes. Apparently, it's part of a "usability study" that UW is currently undergoing.
The tasks were simple - find grad studies, find info on residences, no using the Google search feature - but more interesting was the reason for the study. Apparently there is a large cross-functional UW committee that has been discussing changes to the UW website. Mentions of changing the site on a weekly basis - taking perhaps precedent from the homepage of another prestigious technical school - had led those on the committee to commission this study. Research, apparently, was necessary to settle the "unanswered questions" from the committee.
The odd inner workings of the UW bureaucracy. Especially considering the recent move of many parts of the UW web to go to the reported "Gold Standard / common look and feel" of the site.
It was also interesting to note that the hardest thing to find from the UW frontpage was the Feds' website.
And yes, I also told them that their keyword search function wasn't anywhere near as effective as the Google search.
The tasks were simple - find grad studies, find info on residences, no using the Google search feature - but more interesting was the reason for the study. Apparently there is a large cross-functional UW committee that has been discussing changes to the UW website. Mentions of changing the site on a weekly basis - taking perhaps precedent from the homepage of another prestigious technical school - had led those on the committee to commission this study. Research, apparently, was necessary to settle the "unanswered questions" from the committee.
The odd inner workings of the UW bureaucracy. Especially considering the recent move of many parts of the UW web to go to the reported "Gold Standard / common look and feel" of the site.
It was also interesting to note that the hardest thing to find from the UW frontpage was the Feds' website.
And yes, I also told them that their keyword search function wasn't anywhere near as effective as the Google search.
