my.evergreen usability study

Wed, 05/20/2009 - 14:18 — gilter16

Thanks for the feeback! You've helped make a more usable my.evergreen.edu!

Here are the things that will be developed, based on the data that's been gathered throughout the Usability Study:

Notifications:

Extend existing functionality for Financial Aid and other administrative offices to push notifications to students.
Change wording of the "To Do List, You have..." to "Greener Alert!"
Limit the scope of notifications pushed to my.evergreen.edu to events triggered from Banner or other administrative applications; we won't expand the functionality to include general messages, like "the bookstore is having a sale". This functionality is strictly for notifying students of administrative tasks or deadlines specifically targeted to them individually.
Additional notifications will be addressed as part of current and future application development projects on the admin computing list.

Navigation:

Develop mockup that takes into consideration all of the data gathered. Pursue a tabbed look including tabs for financial aid, campus calendar, account information or preferences as a starting point
Include descriptions of link detail in the mockup

Other functionality additions to be considered:

Remote file management of network shares (Research options/viability)
Listing class schedules (could possibly be included in the Curriculum Management Project)
Ability to see how many spaces a class has left while registering (Maybe part of Curriculum Management Project)
Easier access to CRN's (part of the Curriculum Management Project)

Latest News

Usability Study Next Steps

Wed, 10/14/2009 - 14:55 — gilter16

After a summer of gathering survey data and interviews, the my.evergreen.edu Owners are ready to move on to the next steps of implementing changes to the site to improve usability. Those changes are outlined above. But, if you'd like to read the whole proposal for the changes, it is attached as a pdf to this post. Thank you all for letting us know what you think!

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Mid-Summer Review

Mon, 08/24/2009 - 16:07 — gilter16

We've recieved some great statistical data from the results so far (tallied 7/21/09), so make sure your friends have taken the survey! And from the survey comments we've idenfitied some issues, such as difficulty finding CRNs, that will be addressed.

The survey has also exposed a weakness in the methodology of the usability study. The useful, qualatative data lies in the survey comments! While the quantative data provides a general idea of usability issues with the site, the comments provide specific examples of what can be fixed. Therefore, I took a critical look at the original usability study plan itself.

Attack of the Feature Creep!

Thu, 05/28/2009 - 00:06 — gilter16

Survey-takers have expressed concern that the addition of features to my.evergreen.edu would be a higher priority than improving existing usability. The addition of too many "extra" or "cool" features is known in the software development world as feature creep. In fact, during the creation of the survey, there was a debate over whether or not to even have those additional features listed on the second page of the survey.

Timeline for the Usability Study

Fri, 05/22/2009 - 12:03 — gilter16

From the end of Spring quarter 2009 to Week 2 of Fall quarter 2009, a usability survey will be linked to my.evergreen.edu.
As data from the survey comes back, it will be analyzed and compiled. As trends and common pain-points with using the site appear, solutions to those will develop*.

Around Week 5 of Fall quarter 2009, focus groups will be held with interested students to test out the solutions to the usability issues indicated in the survey.

What is missing from the my.evergreen.edu usability survey?

Wed, 05/20/2009 - 14:38 — gilter16

How could it have been improved?

While the survey is directed at students, there were certainly things missing, simply because it was one student (me), authoring the survey. I tried to get as much input as I could, but the scope of suggestions and ideas about my.evergreen.edu most certainlly outweighs the length of the survey.