Redesigning the University Website: Participatory Design

Case Study

Stefanie Panke, Georgia Allen & Dan McAvinchey

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

AACE E-Learn 2014 October 27-30th

New Orleans

University Website

Digital (inter)face of the organization

Gateway to open access content and education resources

Challenges

Many stakeholders with different interests, backgrounds, motives and varying expertise in web content management

No clearly right or wrong solutions

UNC School of Government

http://www.sog.unc.edu/

Problems with Current Website

• Poor search results / retrieval options• Cumbersome navigation• Unclear structure, disjointed information• Lack of flexibility from faculty perspective• Dated content, broken links• No integration of blogs / multisite content• Poor performance on mobile devices• Lack of Web Analytics Data

Faculty as Co-Designers

• Paradigm shift from ‘users as subjects’ to ‘users as partners’: Recruiting the faculty as co-designers

• Shift from of discussing all that is dissatisfying to building solutions

• Rapid prototyping, not in bits and bytes, but with paper, play dough, scissors, glue.

Goals of the Redesign Process

• Engagement: Immerse faculty as deeply as possible in the process to leverage their expertise and experience.

• Mutual learning: Create shared understanding of web content management concepts, e.g., content types, dynamic views, categories, filters, …

• Innovative thinking: Create space that allows people to be innovative and creative as a foundation for true, substantial change

Process

• August 2013- June 2014 • Two groups with 10, resp. 15 faculty members• Additional consultation meetings• 11 sessions that lasted 90-120 minutes in length • Voluntary participation, no incentive for faculty

members • Outcome: Detailed conceptual design with broad

organizational buy-in• Participants represented approximately 40 % of the

overall faculty in the School

Workshop Topics

• Who is our audience?• How should we structure our content?• What categories will we use to organize the

information?• What will the navigation and overall

information architecture look like?

Audience

• Goal: Identify potential audiences for the online resource

• Exercise: Personas

Personas

• Personas are vivid descriptions of explicitly fictional characters that embody behaviors and motivations that a group of real users might express.

Structure

• Before the workshop: participants email list of audiences

• Aggregated list is reviewed in workshop• Additional brainstorming• Groups work on personas• Completed personas are displayed and ranked

(voting)

Exercise

• Form groups of 3-5• Work across specialties• Create different Personas (3-5)• Be as generic as possible, as specific as

necessary• Approx. 20-30 minutes

Present & Vote

Content

• Goal: Identify organizational output, recurring website elementsExercise: Content Toolkit

Structure

• Brainstorm / research comprehensive list of ways in which the organization disseminates information

• Assign 1-2 ‘information curators’ per resource type

• Create representation of different assets (books, news, user profiles, articles….) using building blocks

Building Blocks

Building Blocks

Exercise

• ‘Information Curators describe the content using the building blocks provided

• Add additional elements as needed

• Time: Approx. 25 minutes

Results

Mockups

Categories

Goal: Harmonize different sets of categories to create functional vocabulary• speak to faculty, staff

and clients / web users• allow for effective

informationdisplay in more than one place

Taxonomy

• Tree structure• Strict taxonomy:

Every item has oneexact place

• Related concept:Ontology – multiple, interconnectedtrees

Status Quo: Multiple, Different, Overlapping Category Systems

Categorize Resource Sites

Categorize Resource Sites: Round 1

• Form 5 Teams (1-2)• Each team categorizes 3 resource sites• Each team assigns 2 categories per resource.• Time: 5 Minutes!

Categorize Resource Sites: Round 2

• Switch resource sites between team• Assign 2 categories, only if needed• Change and edit as you see fit!• Time: 5 Minutes!

Review Categories

Sticker = Term Part of School of Government Taxonomy

Taxonomy on the fly

Shout out categories, we will document on the fly

Results

Navigation

Your Mission: We invite you to think about the website as a museum. You are planning an exhibition of the School’s concept, work and content.

You are here: School of Government Courts Wing ….

Think Pair: Museum Map

• Form groups of 2-3• What are the

orientation points you want to put on the museum map?

• Time: 10 minutes

Group Exercise: Structure• Work in groups

(government vs. courts)

• Build a structure for your area of expertise (government / court)

• Time: 30 minutes

Plenum Exercise: Lobby

Results

Sitemap

Summary

• The best web content management system can only work effectively if the people who provide the content work with it and not against it.

• Participatory design processes take up considerable time and resources, but can lay the foundation for substantial change.

• It can make sense to work with different segments of the organization separately.

Outlook

• Completed: Design Concept / Technical Feasibility• Currently: Implementation process• Next spring: Usability tests and faculty review• Anticipated launch: April 2014