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