Overview

When Web browsers visit Indiana University electronically, they normally first encounter the IU System Home Page for all eight campuses. When they next select IU Bloomington, they see the IUB Home Page, which is the electronic gateway into a growing number of Web sites at the Bloomington campus. Does the IUB Home Page provide an image of Indiana University that will help attract students to come here? Does it invite them to further explore what our campus has to offer? Does it provide information that addresses questions on their minds, as well as meet the needs of students, faculty and staff who are already on campus?

The IUB Home Page Evaluation and Remodeling Team

After several preliminary meetings and discussion, it became apparent that we needed to find out the sorts of things people would expect to find at the IUB Web site. We considered our target audience to be prospective students and their parents, as well as students currently enrolled, faculty and staff who are employed at IUB, and alumni. It became clear that a needs analysis should be conducted.

The IST Design-Research Team

Instructional systems technologists routinely perform needs analyses, create design prototypes, and do formative evaluation during the instructional development process. Frick saw this as an opportunity for IST graduate students to gain further practical experience, and as an opportunity to build on the success of his and his students' previous design of the IST Web site in the School of Education. This site has gained national recognition among peer programs in instructional technology, and has already proved to be a further recruiting tool for the top-ranked IST graduate program.

The approach used by the IST Design-Research Team is also known in recent years as user-centered design. The methodology largely consists of conducting usability tests of design prototypes with the target audience to identify and remedy problems in an iterative manner. One of the best examples of such an approach occurred over 20 years ago at Xerox PARC. While Xerox chose not to market their Alto computers, their interface design was later adopted by Apple Computer. The Macintosh was born, and the rest is history, as they say.

This report discusses the efforts and results of this IST Design-Research Team for the IUB Home Page. The Design Research Team was coordinated by doctoral students Michael Corry and Lisa Hansen. Other team members included: Robert Carteaux, Charles Kalnbach, Barbara Maynes, Cynthia Schultz, Nancy Schwartz, Melanie Stallings, Wendy Tamborrino, Godfrey Whyte, and David Winer.

Tasks Completed by the IST Design-Research Team

1. Conducted a needs analysis to determine what questions are asked most often of information providers at IUB;
2. Created a new information structure, based on common themes that emerged when sorting and grouping these questions;
3. Conducted initial usability tests on this new information structure (on paper), as well as on the current IUB home page (printed from the Web);
4. Determined that the current home page was less effective than then new one when users tried to find answers to those frequently asked questions (it also took 2 - 3 times longer when using the current page);
5. Modified the new information structure based on early usability testing, and then conducted more usability tests which lead to further refinements;
6. Converted the paper version of the new information structure to a Web prototype (on computer), making adjustments to accommodate differences of "page" sizes on computer screens vs. paper;
7. Revised further the Web prototype based on usability tests conducted on computers using Netscape, Mosaic and Lynx browsers on Macintosh and DOS/Windows platforms; and
8. Made recommendations to the IUB Home Page Evaluation and Remodeling Team.

Synopsis of the Design-Research
for the IUB Top-Level Information Structure

Needs Analysis: Initial Information Gathering

The other and more long-term team began what would prove to be the most exhaustive portion of the project -- a series of campus interviews to find out what information is being requested. This list of frequently asked questions would provide the basis for deciding how information would be organized.

Needs Analysis: Interview Process

These offices were contacted three times to arrange for interviews of information providers -- first, to find out who the key information providers were; second, to send a letter explaining the project and providing a copy of the interview questionnaire; and third, by phone to arrange for on-site interviews of the identified contacts.

After these arrangements were made, the Design Research Team members were assigned individual interviews, which took place over a two-week period in late June. Two offices simply returned the completed questionnaire as their schedules would not permit scheduling an interview. The Bursar's Office was reluctant to participate and was not interviewed.

Overall response was very positive, as we stressed that the reason for conducting these interviews was to help reduce the number of calls these office personnel must field on a regular basis. Interviewers asked office personnel to report their most frequently asked questions, how often, when, and by whom they were asked, and how the questions were answered.

See Appendix A for the cover letter and interview form. Appendix B contains the lists of frequently asked questions, which are divided into groups:

Needs Analysis: Organizing the Data

• Attending IUB -- the Basics
• Academic Programs and Research
• People at IUB
• Recreation, Entertainment and Tickets
• Services Used Often
• General Information

From these data, we designed the first draft of new home page using the six topic areas as the primary organization for the information structure. We decided that the information needed to be as compact as possible, and that the number of options at the top level be kept to seven or less -- due to human short-term memory limitations. We also took advantage of the hypertext environment to allow for several paths to some information (e.g., the library can be reached via academic departments and research as well as through services). With the home page and the second level (subsidiary) pages in place, usability testing of the new information design began in mid-July.

It is also important to note that the ordering of categories on subsidiary pages was based on frequency of occurrence of questions asked. Thus, those areas where questions were asked most often were at the top of the list (e.g., admissions and housing under "Attending IUB"). See Appendix D for details.

Usability Testing

Further Usability Testing of the Electronic Design

Descriptions of the Versions Tested

Version X has home page menu items by name only (no exemplars). Version Y has the same home page menu items by name, plus a few exemplars, all of which are links (hot). There are a few minor word variations in the menu items of Versions X and Y. Version Z is similar to Y with exemplars listed, but they are not hot. Wording in Version Z is consistent with X. Versions Y and Z have "double spacing" between the choices. Version X is largely "single-spaced". Versions X, Y and Z are the same at the 2nd and 3rd levels. They differ only at the top level -- the IUB Home Page.

Results of Computer Usability Tests

The information structure seems to work a little better with those users who know something about IUB -- e.g., that you need to register for classes before you can take them, that you need a permit to register, etc. IU is in many ways like a foreign culture, even to those parents and students from the U.S. We should keep that in mind in promoting IU to the outside with our Web site.

Interestingly, there are no clear preferences thus far for X, Y or Z.

Some users like X because it is clean and simple. The screen is not crowded and you can see all the choices at a glance. It requires minimal arrow-key pressing in Lynx, since the first choice on the menu is one arrow-key press away. Some users do not like X because it does not have the exemplars, so "you don't know what you're choosing until you get there" (meaning the second-level menu).

Some users like Y because they can see the exemplars, and can click on them at the first level to go to one of the choices (e.g., advising). Some users do not like Y, particularly in Lynx, because it's too slow (too many arrow-key presses to make, and they often down-arrow past the choice they want because of lag time, and then need to up-arrow back to what they want). Some users do not like Y because it is too busy or crowded, does not provide all the exemplars, and appears rather "ugly" in Lynx, though it looks fine in Netscape or Mosaic to these same people.

Some users like Z because you can see the exemplars, although some would prefer them to be hot in Netscape or Mosaic (as they are in Y). On the other hand, Lynx users think Z is faster because fewer arrow-key strokes are needed to make a choice.

Recommendation

We recommend that we go with Version Z, substituting the final version of graphics being developed by another group.

• Version Z is consistent with the rest of the design at levels 2 and 3. The user can look down a column of hot choices, and then can see elaboration to the right of each choice in the form of a partial list.
• Version Z does not disenfranchise the Lynx users, either in terms of making them down-arrow a large number of times to select something in the middle-to-bottom half of the list, and it can show visual differences between the hot words vs. the exemplars, depending on one's terminal emulation software.
• Above the menu on the Z home page, we need to add a sentence or two to explain that a menu of 8 items is listed below, and that these are not mutually exclusive or all-inclusive lists.
• As a general principle, all important choices must be visible on a single screen in all three browsers: Lynx, Mosaic and Netscape. Ironically, Netscape wastes more vertical space than Lynx and Mosaic, and it is usually Netscape that creates more restrictions in the number of words and choices as formatted in X, Y and Z.

Further Needs Identified from the Usability Testing

And most significant, there are relatively few academic program descriptions on-line at this time. Yet questions about degree programs offered at IUB were reported to occur more than 1,000 times per week. While much of this information appears in printed academic bulletins published by the College of Arts and Sciences and Professional Schools and Divisions, it is currently not accessible in electronic form on the World Wide Web at Indiana University Bloomington. Nor could we find any web site at IU that includes the current tuition rates, fees, etc. (It would seem that the Registrar's web site would be a good place to put this information, under "Attending IUB -- the basics.")

It is not surprising that prospective students and their parents often want to know what you can learn at IUB as an undergraduate or graduate student, and how much it costs. IUB should address these basic user needs on the World Wide Web.

Appendices