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UX Strategy KitCreated and Compiled by These Are Not The

Baldwins You’re Looking For

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ........................................................................................3Content Audit/Card Sort Findings Report ......................................................4Usability Findings Report ............................................................................12Persona .........................................................................................................15Prototype ......................................................................................................16

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Executive SummaryThese Are Not The Baldwins You’re Looking For conducted a UX analysis of the Contact Us, About Us, and Maps sections of the North Carolina Coastal Atlas (NCCA) website. To that end, we conducted a content audit and a card sort; we created a persona that approximates the desires and design needs of NCCA’s target users; most recently, we selected three representative users and gave them usability tasks designed to quantify the ease of use of those pages and their associated tools. All of these activities enhanced our understanding of what it means to design with the audience in mind, and of the overarching importance of keeping the UX experience a priority at every phase of the design process.

For the usability tasks, each user was asked to give his or her impressions of the NCCA website sections, based on how easy or difficult it was to complete the tasks and how long it took to do so. Based on their feedback, we have identified several design flaws in these sections, as well as recommendations for rectifying these flaws. 

The Contact Us page does not provide a means of contacting anyone associated with the website, and it does not specify which fields have to be filled out and which do not. These problems can be addressed by streamlining the page navigation, adding a feedback option for sending suggestions, and including a sentence explaining that the inclusion of one's name and email is voluntary. 

The About Us page includes an unnecessary disclaimer. Removing it will make the remaining content more cohesive. 

The Maps tools are not sufficiently user-friendly for visitors who do not have a background in the coastal sciences. This can be rectified by decreasing the sensitivity of the Zoom feature, and by simplifying the "Create a New Map Using Our Data" option so that an average user will find this exercise entertaining rather than frustrating. 

Finally, we devised a prototype of the Contact Us page, intended to address some of the undesirable aspects we identified via the different aspects of our analysis.

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Content Audit/Card Sort Findings Report

Introduction This report will recommend the web page redesign efforts that the North Carolina Coastal Atlas (NCCA) needs to undertake for the About Us, Contact Us, and Blog web pages. To validate these findings, team members conducted an open card sort on the entire NCCA website, as well as a content audit on the Contact Us, About Us, and Blog web pages. 

These web pages and NCCA’s information architecture were analyzed and rated, based on our team’s data collection methods, to assist NCCA in understanding how user-friendly the current structure of the NCCA website is and to evaluate the usefulness of the content currently available on the web pages. Based on the analysis, our team concludes that: 

The About Us web page is notably well written and serves the goals of the organization and its users/customers. Our suggested improvements will bolster the credibility of the page and reduce redundancy from other web pages. 

The Contact Us web page is not meeting the needs of the user as it does not connect the user to any specific person or information.   

The Blog web page has not been updated in more than two years and four of the post links are broken, leading users to feel frustrated.  

Recommendations These Are Not the Baldwins You’re Looking For recommend that NCCA: 

Work to immediately improve the credibility of the website by: o Adding the credentials for and a photo of the steering committee to the

About Us web page, as well as to shift redundant content from other web pages to this web page to alleviate clutter from those web pages. 

o Updating the Contact Us web page with the organization address, phone number and email address, as well as adding social media widgets to the page. 

Take one of two actions for the Blog web page within the next two months: o Remove the Blog web page altogether, due to its outdated material and

broken links, or o Archive the posts that are useful and link them, as well as future blog

posts, to the organization’s social media outlets. 

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Report Criteria 

The goal of the NCCA website is to provide interactive online maps and investigative data relating to the exploration and analysis of, and basic education about, coastal issues and resources. The open card sort helped our team develop an understanding of how user-friendly the current structure of the NCCA website is and the content audit helped to evaluate the usefulness of the content currently available on the web pages. The questions/criteria used to assess this goal for each section assessed by our team, based on the content available, are as follows: 

Is the goal of the web page section clear?  Is the content accurate and up-to-date?  Is the content effective?  What information did our open card sort participant notice? 

This report summarizes the team's findings based on these questions. This report is organized to include a justification of the questions/criteria, an analysis of these questions, and the team’s design recommendations for the web pages. 

The Content Audit data is embedded in the Appendix for reference. 

Justification of the Questions/Criteria These Are Not the Baldwins You’re Looking For understand that NCCA is eager to engage its users, so our team is recommending the redesign efforts for the About Us, Contact Us, and Blog sections based on the following criteria: 

Keep as-is – information is relevant and well written  Improve – information lacks quality content, and/or requires

updating, some links are broken or dead  Consolidate – information is repetitive or has overlapping topics  Remove – information is no longer relevant, links are broken/dead, and

content has not been updated in more than two years 

Is the goal of the web page section clear? When a user clicks on a section of a web page, they need to have an understanding of what the purpose of that section is. In order to evaluate this criterion, our team assessed the following questions: 

What is on the web page?  Are page and section titles, headlines and sub-headings promising what’s

actually delivered? 

Is the content accurate and up-to-date? A user needs to feel as though they are receiving the most current information available when visiting web pages and a measure of information accuracy is when that content

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was last updated. In order to evaluate this criterion, our team assessed the following questions:  

When was the content last updated?  Are there any broken or misdirected links? 

Is the content effective? Effective content will work to serve the needs of the organization/business and its customers/users. In order to evaluate this criterion, our team assessed the following:   

Does the web page meet the user's goal and the business's goals? How or how not? 

What information did our open card sort participant notice? Since an open card sort assesses the structure of website content, and not the individual content itself, this question served to help our team make connections between how a typical user views the architecture of the information on each page versus how they anticipated viewing it. 

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Analysis of Criteria 

About Us Is the goal of the web page section clear? 

What is on the web page? The About Us page includes five headings: 

o Introduction (a brief description of the organization), o Geographic Extent (a description of the scope of the atlas), o Technology (a description of the design elements of the atlas), o Partnerships (the names of the steering committee that manage the Atlas

project and of the stakeholders who support the project), and o Disclaimer (a caveat regarding the currency of the information). 

The apparent goal of this page is to inform the user of key elements of the web page and what the organization's goal is—to make information on NCCA usable and available to anyone who might need it.   

Are page and section titles, headlines and sub-headings promising what’s actually delivered? 

Yes; however, the team noted that adding photos and credentials of the steering committee members mentioned under the Partnership subheading would enhance the web page’s credibility. 

Is the content accurate and up-to-date?  When was the content last updated? 

This page does not indicate a date when last updated.  The only timestamp available is the 2018 copyright year at the bottom of the page. Our team requires further discussion with an NCCA consultant to obtain factual information. 

Are there any broken or misdirected links? There are no links available on this page. 

Is the content effective?  Does the web page meet user goals and business goals? How or how

not?Yes, the information on this web page is concise and avoids redundancy. Users can quickly find information on the steering committee, the partners, and a quick synopsis of what a user might find on the entire website. The page is simple and categorized by paragraphs and Level 1 headings. 

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What information did our open card sort participant notice? Our open card sort participant did not state concerns with the About Us page directly; however, our participant did notice that there is a redundancy in the linking of pages. Specifically, the About Us tab and About the Atlas heading on the home page are linked to the same information, and the About Us page contains some of the same information as the home screen; for instance, both list the involved partners. The participant felt that the About Us web page was hard to categorize because it seemed random. Lastly, our card sort participant noted that the About Us web page needs to be on the homepage but not necessarily part of the main tabs, possibly as a smaller link at the bottom of the page, as most websites have. 

Overall section analysis 

The About Us web page of the NCCA website is notably well written and serves the goals of the organization and its users/customers.  Our team and card sort participant did highlight areas of improvement, which will boost the credibility of the content and reduce redundancy from other pages. Based on the criteria rating for the questions evaluated, updates will improve the effectiveness of the content on this page.     

Contact Us Is the goal of the web page section clear? 

What is on the web page? This page currently provides a call-to-action form for the user to complete in order to offer feedback. 

Are page and section titles, headlines and sub-headings promising what’s actually delivered? 

This page is not delivering what a user perceives as being contact information. Our team expected to find information relevant to the organization’s location, phone number, email address, and, possibly, a contact individual. 

Is the content accurate and up-to-date?  When was the content last updated? 

This page does not indicate a date when last updated. The only timestamp available is the 2018 copyright year at the bottom of the page. Our team requires further discussions with NCCA’s consultant in order to obtain factual information. 

Are there any broken or misdirected links? There are no links available on this page. 

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Is the content effective?  Does the web page meet the user's goals and the business's goals? How or

how not? No, this web page does not meet the user's goals.  The web page is dominated by a form for the user to complete while there are no other contact details. Information should include the organization's address, email address and phone number for additional avenues of contact.  Lastly, widgets for the user to contact the organization’s social media sites should be added to this page.  

What information did our open card sort participant notice? Our open card sort participant did not state concerns with the About Us page directly; however, our participant did ask why the Follow Us Socially was on the homepage and not on the Contact Us page.  The participant also felt that the Contact Us web page was another hard to categorize item. Lastly, the participant noted that the Contact Us web page needs to be on the homepage but not necessarily part of the main tabs, possibly as a smaller link at the bottom of the page, as most websites have. 

Overall section analysis Based on the criteria rating for the questions evaluated, it was determined that adding more information to the web page will improve the credibility of the content on this page. The Contact Us page needs to list the address, email address and phone number for the organization.  Both the content audit and the open card sort agreed that the ability to be socially connected would benefit the NCCA website. 

Blog Is the goal of the web page section clear? 

What is on the web page? The page lists several articles, news stories, and external links that are supposed to familiarize its users with the North Carolina coast, from both an academic and a recreational perspective.  

Are page and section titles, headlines and sub-headings promising what’s actually delivered? 

No, the headlines do not promise what is actually delivered because many of the links are dead. 

Is the content accurate and up-to-date?  When was the content last updated? 

There are 13 items and nine blog posts on the web page.  One was last updated in 2016, five in 2015, three in 2013, one in 2008, and the others do not list a date. 

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Are there any broken or misdirected links? Yes, the site has four broken links related to the content. 

Is the content effective?  Does the web page meet user goals and business goals? How or how not? 

No, the web page did not meet user goals. Of the nine blog posts listed, our team determined the three search filters added to the web page were unnecessary for such a small volume of content.  An example of the ineffectiveness of the search filter is the “Author(s)” filter.  Once a user clicks on the Author(s) filter, the same posts that are visible at first glance appear on the page.  Additionally, one of the headings is labeled "Explore this Map,” but when our team attempted to do so, we were told that the option will only work with Adobe Flash Player version 11.1.0 or higher. This message also states that the author hopes to address this inconvenience in a future version of their viewer; but the post in which the heading appears is nearly three years old. On a positive note, our team thought that the blog posts available were comprehensive, not too long (average length is half a page), and easy to follow. The vocabulary is appropriate for a non-specialist audience. 

What information did our open card sort participant notice? Our open card sort participant was notably disappointed with how few and outdated the entries were on the Blog web page. It had been over two years since the last post, and a full year between that post and the one prior. Our participant felt that the Blog was the least appealing portion of the site because it had dead links and needed serious updating.  Finally, the participant noted that the Blog web page was the last item that was hard to categorize because it did not seem useful to the site.  

Overall section analysis The Blog web page is considerably outdated and consists of broken links.  Our card sort participant equally noted the dysfunction of and their disappointment in the page’s content.  Based on the criteria rating for the questions evaluated, each evaluation determined that NCCA should remove this web page from the website, unless there is a renewed commitment to fix broken links, and add more updated content on a regular basis, which would, if done, allow users to find the NCCA website through social media, and could increase traffic.  

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Recommendations 

Based on the These Are Not the Baldwins You’re Looking For team’s analysis, we recommend that NCCA: 

Work to immediately improve the credibility of its website by: o Adding credentials and a photo of the steering committee to the About Us

web page and shifting redundant content (About the Atlas) from other web pages to this web page in order to alleviate clutter from other web pages. 

o Updating the Contact Us web page with the organization address, phone number and email address, as well as adding social media widgets to the page. 

Take one of the following actions for the Blog web page within the next two months: 

o Remove the Blog web page altogether due to its outdated material and broken links 

o Archive the posts that are useful and link them, as well as future blog posts to the organization’s social media outlets, as well as create new content on a regularly scheduled basis (identify a particular party to oversee this area).  

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AppendixContent Audit Raw Data

Card Sort Photo and Findings Report

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Usability Findings Report Introduction 

This report will outline the usability of the North Carolina Coastal Atlas (NCCA) website as determined by tasks that were undertaken by selected citizen scientists, and by subsequent interviews conducted with these users. The usability test focused on the Contact Us, About Us, and Maps pages. 

The goals of the NCCA website include the following: 

providing interactive online maps and investigative data related to the exploration and analysis of coastal issues and resources, 

providing basic education about these issues and resources, and  enabling users to contact the website’s designers with questions, concerns, and

suggestions related to the website’s content. 

We will identify our users by their usernames: “jmr98,” “hmridgley,” and “feedbackGiven”. feedbackGiven is male, and the others are female. Each were given a list of usability tasks to complete and asked for their impressions and responses to those tasks and the website. In addition, we asked each user to note how much time he or she needed to complete each task: less than one minute, between one and two minutes, or longer than two minutes. 

The usability tasks and interviews helped our team develop an understanding of how well the website meets the listed goals. 

Based on these interviews, our team concludes that: 

The Contact Us page is difficult to navigate, its design is dated, if not obsolete, and in need of direct contact information. 

The Maps feature is not as intuitive as it should be, and the scale of the zoom feature needs to be reduced. 

Recommendations 

These Are Not The Baldwins You’re Looking For recommend that NCCA implement the following actions. 

For Contact Us: 

Streamline the navigation features of the page.  Add a Feedback option for sending suggestions.  Add a note so that users understand that adding their name/email is voluntary. 

For About Us: 

Remove disclaimer from this page. 

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For Maps: 

Simplify the features so that someone without a background in coastal science will have no trouble creating and exploring maps. 

Make the Zoom feature less sensitive so that users will find it easier to move from one precise spot on a map to another. 

Interview Subject Feedback 

feedbackGiven seemed to have a more technical background than the others. His responses seemed more succinct and technically-based than the others, who gave longer explanations.  He also did not overexplain his navigation like the others.  He went directly to the tabs he needed to access. As a result, he completed the tasks in the shortest amount of time. 

The following is a list of the issues that feedbackGiven noted: 

The Contact Us page needs names/numbers.  The page is difficult to navigate  The page design is dated.  A disclaimer does not belong on the About Us page.  The use of Flash was outdated (he mentioned that a lot of sites were trying to

phase out this feature).  The scale of the zoom feature needs to be reduced.  The map is not as intuitive as he would like. 

 jmr98 and hmridgley gave very little information. They appeared to want the house button to take them back to the website’s main page. One of them stated that she could not figure out the Data Catalog or the Map page.  

 One of these users also wanted direct contact information, and said that having a “Directions” feature on the Map page would be useful. However, she liked the design of the page. 

 Results indicate that none of the users realized that adding their name/email to the Contact Us page was voluntary. For this reason, we suggest adding a note to the effect of “Fields marked with an * are required.”  jmr98 located the Contact Us page but failed to make note of whether or not there was “Direct” contact information.  hmridgley and feedbackGiven failed to complete the task of sending feedback to the site.  Instead they both verbally stated their comments.  One of the tasks we assigned these users was to add a topographic layer to the Ocean & Estuarine Shorelines map. This seemed to be the most challenging task. Only one user was able to even locate the appropriate map.  Outside of that, the tool to add a

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layer took a long time to load, which made the users feel as though they may have done something incorrectly.  Each user took roughly the same amount of time to complete a given task. The tasks that were completed in less than one minute were all stated to have been very easy to complete.  The tasks that were more between one to two minutes required the users to navigate a bit deeper into the web pages which took time, but was not difficult.  Tasks that took two minutes or longer challenged the users to do things they were not accustomed to doing, and the program took longer to accommodate task completion.  Two of the three users noted their love for the pictures as the site loaded.  Each user also stated their love for the variety of maps available, and for the fact that there is an option to create your own.  There was concern from each user about the Abode Flash player not loading when they clicked on the Maps feature and about the layering feature taking too long to load.  Two of the users noted that an actual phone number or email address would be nice to have for Contact information. 

Conclusion 

The results of our usability testing lead us to conclude that the website as a whole could benefit greatly from an increased focus on the interactivity of the design elements. The Contact Us page is a bit misleading because no contact information is provided. Nor is there any indication of what is done with the feedback that users send in, or of when—or even whether—users will receive responses to their feedback. In addition, it should be made clearer that users are not obligated to provide their names and email addresses. The Disclaimer should be removed from the About Us page, as this can convey the impression that the designers are more concerned with focusing on legal minutiae than with providing a satisfactory experience for visitors to the website. The Maps features are not as much fun to use as they could be—and as they were intended to be—because the tools are not sufficiently intuitive for beginning users. 

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The following is a link to the prototpye of the Contact Us page, followed by screen shots of the individual pages:

These Are Not The Baldwins You're Looking For Prototype

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