Research Development Services

The Brief & Background

What I did

• 7 experienced and 4 new or low experienced users
• 4 users who spoke English as a second language
• All with a variety of roles within the Research Enterprise

• Navigate to the Research Gateway Website
• Navigate to the Research Development Services homepage
• Navigate to the Limited Submissions Calendar
• Look for funding that applies to you or your audience

Findings

Findability was the key issue for users locating the RDS main page. In user testing, all users made the same first click.

The issue of findability of the Limited Submissions Calendar was not the key barrier to engagement as was previously assumed. The user testing showed that the issue was usability.

RDS had built out their pages with lengthy explanations up front before the call-to-action.

The nomenclature on the overall Gateway site was problematic. The contributing 13 departments viewed the Gateway as a compilation of individual sites and built their navigations to reflect this. Gateway users viewed the site as a resource for all research and were confused by the repeating nomenclature that had different meanings depending on the page found.

The collected research findings were built into user journey infographics to educate key stakeholders within RDS and the Research Enterprise. The RDS department needed a research report to support their changes. The report also helped begin the conversation of rebuilding the Research Gateway website.

I provided research-based insights, design directions, and proposed functionalities. I developed user readouts as a set of training for the greater Research Gateway contributors (13 departments). This was the first step in an ongoing process to help shift our organization into user-centric thinking.

Key tools and deliverables

• Silverback App
• Excel
• Adobe InDesign
• Keynote
• Stakeholder interviews
• User interviews
• Customer journey infographics
• Research report
• Research driven suggested optimizations
• Content contributor trainings

Team

Clients – RDS department

Front end developer – Bonnie Jean Michalski

Developer – Leland Boeman

Digital marketing manager – Eden Jeager

User testing, presenting & artifact building – Gianna Biocca

Results

Limited Submissions

The word calendar in “Limited Submissions Calendar” created a false set of expectations. Renaming the section to “Limited Submissions” eliminated the confusion of unmet functionality expectations.

Discovering the Limited Submissions issue was usability and not findability, helped us focus on function. The addition of search, research category sorting, date sorting, and availability stage sorting, really improved users’ engagement with the database. Researchers and research administrators could use the new functionality to narrow down grants by their specific needs.

Originally there was a 3 screen deep introduction of the Limited Submissions. The introduction was shortened and further direction was placed behind a learn more link. This reorganization freed up visual space and removed the experience of feeling lost which enabled repeat users to work faster while still providing the resources needed for new users.

• information about the grant provider
• to an intro about the grant history
• to an abstract of the grant and it’s requirements

The overwhelming feedback requested linking only to grant abstracts. Adapting to different navigations over and over again was a taxing experience. The users wanted to see each abstract’s requirements to help them decide which opportunity fit their needs.

Funding Opportunities

The Funding Opportunities section was a mix of internal language, lists of links, and long explanations. The page title was changed to a more user-centric, active language of Find Funding instead of Funding Opportunities. Two buttons were added in response to the 100% feedback request, “Please provide links to internal and external funding. I don’t care if the internal funding comes from this department or other UA colleges. When I am first looking I need to see everything in one place.”

To combat internal politics, anonymous user quotes were used in the presentations and trainings to help get across the research findings without getting into reasoning away why someone would comment a certain way.

RDS Homepage

The Research Development Services homepage was moved to match the mental model of 100% of participants first click. The home page was also redesigned to include the top 6 most commonly used links.

Next Steps

The updates to the RDS pages were so well received that I began ending my presentations with thoughts about rebuilding the whole Gateway site. This tiered buy-in process began theUX maturity development of the UA Research office. My work building out the UX maturity of the UA Research office produced UX evangelists. The UX evangelists and I received full buy-in from the Research Enterprise to rebuild the Gateway website from a user-centric approach.