User Research Plan

UNF Department of English Website

Hannah Othmer, Rebekah Goodrich, & Jocelyn Tolbert

Summary
This research plan outlines our plan to evaluate the University of North Florida
Department of English (DOE) website’s usability with two key audiences: faculty and current
students. User research techniques including surveys and interviews, as well as immediate user
research, will provide the majority of our data. We also plan to self-evaluate the websites of
DOEs of similar-sized universities in Florida for usability/user experience and their adherence to
the Three-Click Rule. Outlined below is a tentative schedule to conduct research with
participants pulled from a pool of faculty and current UNF students who use the website.

Research Issues and Questions

We chose to take a closer look at the UNF DOE website for a few reasons. A common
theme when we discussed our own experiences navigating the site in the past was that the site
was frustrating to use. For instance, there are two different prominently-featured ways to access a
list of the department’s faculty and staff — and two different lists. Anecdotal evidence also
suggests that the site could be improved upon. Below are some questions that will guide our
research:

1. What are the goals of faculty members who visit the DOE site? What information are
they trying to find, or what problem are they attempting to solve?
2. What are the goals of current UNF students who visit the site? What information are they
trying to find, or what problem are they attempting to solve?
3. Are users able to complete their goals just by using the DOE website, or do they have to
go somewhere else or use a different method of communication to do it?
4. How satisfied are these users with their experience on the site?
5. Does the site adhere to the Three-Click Rule? That is, can users reach their goal within
three clicks of arrival? Will they leave the website if they cannot get to their goal within
three clicks?
Research Structure
Our research structure has been divided into five steps: Conducting research,
observational research, usability, usability tests, analyzing results, and preparing results. The
difference between conducting research and usability tests is that we as the researchers will go
through our survey to make sure it is clear and understandable and so we have a firsthand
experience at what we are trying to test. Our results will not go into our final numbers, but they
will be used as a starting point for the rest of the research to be used as a reference for a high
quality database. The reason we are going through the survey and website as well as our
participants is to see if we need to change our survey questions or our expectations with the
results we gather. We want to run multiple tests, so it is good to make sure we are getting the
results that we can really use in our final numbers.

1. Conducting Research: Usability Testing

a. Using the survey to ask students and faculty their experience with the
UNF English website.
b. Using online platforms to reach more students for the survey
2. Observational Research: Immediate User Research
a. Watching students and faculty use the UNF English website
3. Usability Tests:
a. Our group members will follow the survey questions for the UNF English
Website to gain first-person understanding and research.
b. Testing other college and university english websites; University of
Central Florida, University of Florida, and Jacksonville University.
4. Analyzing Results:
a. Comparing results from students to faculty and connecting it to the first-
person results.
5. Preparing Results:
a. Showcasing results in graphs and charts that are easy to read and easily
accessible.

Schedule
The schedule provided is set into how we are planning on gathering our research data and
how long we believe it will take to get results. After getting results we will start putting together
the numbers and forming our presentation to discuss what we have found. The third schedule is
our meeting times and an outline of our roles within the study.

1. We plan on conducting interviews with current UNF English faculty and current UNF
undergraduate students in the English degree program. We will conduct these interviews
over the course of a few weeks.
 a. Within the interviews we will ask survey questions and watch the users use the
UNF English website.
b. We will conduct the research in person and online.
2. After the interviews we will gather the data into graphs and readable numbers to present.
3. Our group will mainly be able to work on this on the weekends and evenings. Meeting
every Thursday and Sunday at 6pm over Zoom. We plan to divide the work into three
roles:
a. Screener: Recruiting participants, conducting interviews, and writing survey
questions.
b. Researcher: Gathering information, making charts and graphs, and analyzing data.
c. Writer: Putting all the information together so it is coherent and easy to
understand.

Resources
Our resources will include Zoom and Google Doc in order to facilitate group
conversation and cooperation. Observing The User Experience by Goodman, Kunviasky, and
Moed, which will provide us with terms and concepts to further our research. Our current goal is
to acquire as much data as possible in order to have significant results. Therefore, we are
potentially going to be using Qualtrics to create surveys, which will allow us to gather data more
efficiently. Additionally, we will be using Excel to analyze our statistics and Word to create
graphics for our presentation, which will be created via PowerPoint.

Deliverables
Our deliverables will be analyzed and presented through a research report. The report will
include our anticipated results, methodology, and a detailed description of the results.
Statistical graphs will be created to display and easily interpret our results. If any technical issues
are found in the UNF English website then we will create possible solutions to the issues. We
expect to have recommendations to improve the organization of materials.