Syracuse University Room Selection Guide

June 30th, 2019

Usability and Testing Report

Shawn Gaetano & Christopher Huang

Introduction

Entering college can be a very tough and confusing time. Large amounts of paperwork,
applications, and processes are very daunting to go through, especially if there is not a guide
walking you through everything. After reviewing the official Syracuse Housing guide, we felt
like there was a lot of improvement that can be made to make it more clear and easier to read.

This report was created to show how effective the guide was to guide people through the room
selection process. Testing was very important to work out any confusion and was beneficial in
finding things to add that were not explained well enough. We wanted to make the guide as in-
depth and informative as possible so that the readers will be able to confidently select their room.

Beginning, we wanted to create a guide that would be very useful and visual. To figure out what
exactly was wrong with the official instructions for room selection, we asked a few people who
attend Syracuse University. The main issue was that “they have the info scattered all over and on
different pages” and another common complaint was that “there was no visuals at all, it’s all
text.” Keeping these things in mind, we wanted to create instructions that are visual, informative,
and effective.

As our test subjects, we used people that we knew from Syracuse University who were doing
room selection. Although the process has already passed, it was still possible to follow the guide
for the “wait list” housing application. The same guide and rules still apply, although the housing
application is the only thing different.

Taking the feedback of the official Syracuse University room selection guide into mind, our
main overall goal was to create a cleaner, more visual, and more resourceful guide to help those
going through the process.

Methods and Protocols

Since this process is only available to students at Syracuse University who are applying to
housing, we selected people who have either previously gone through the process or plan on
going through the process. Although it is a very selective control group, it would be the most
effective to choose a group of people who would benefit from it. Everyone in the group is aged
20 years old, and currently attends Syracuse University.

For the testing, since most of the Syracuse University students we know are around the world
and live in different places, we decided the best procedure would be to FaceTime them and have
them walk through the guide and tell us what they think while following along.

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Each person in the control group FaceTimed us and used their computer to follow the guide
while talking to us. This is considered as the Think-aloud (talk-aloud) protocol. We believe this
was the most effective protocol because talking through processes as you are doing them will
give researchers who are studying you better information on what your thoughts are, if you find
anything confusing, and your thoughts and emotions are more transparent to analyze. This
helped us greatly when figuring out things that were confusing to the control group.

After they completed the guide, we conducted an exit poll and told them to rate, and give us their
honest opinion and constructive criticism on a scale of 1-10. They all gave us some very good
feedback, and we adjusted the guide to include the feedback they had given us.

Results and Discussion

Name Age Comments Exit Poll

Rating
Justin 20 “The guide worked well. I definitely would’ve liked to have this 10
Laurent when I applied for housing last semester because it was confusing
and Housing services was not nearly as helpful in walking me
through the process

Patrick 20 “Great guide. Only thing is add more pictures if possible and also 9.5
Penfield think about added more reference links too. Other than that good
stuff”

Michael 20 “I followed the steps but since the room selection process already 8
Egidio happened, I couldn’t follow the entire thing. Remembering back
though when I was selecting a room, this would be very helpful to
anybody who can select a room next semester.”

Nicolas 20 “Website and instructions are clean. Didn’t get confused and it 10
Walker perfectly walks you through everything”

The main issue that arose was that the actual room selection process is currently not going on,
however it was possible to replicate this by filling out the “wait-list” housing application. Aside
from that issue, there were no other large issues aside from the constructive criticism our users
gave us feedback on.

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Revisions

We had to make a few revisions to the final product to make it more effective. The revisions
included
- More visual pictures walking through the tasks and where to find certain things
- More reference links added
- Fixed order of tasks (switched around first 3 steps to the correct order)

Conclusion

In conclusion, we believe that this guide will be very effective for those going through the
roommate selection process. Visualizing steps and in-depth explanations are the strengths of this
guide, and help the reader understand how to correctly select a Syracuse University dorm room.