ASU Events

BACKGROUND

The ASU events site experienced a large volume of negative feedback found in within the general survey on ASU’s website. The team decided to get to the bottom of the issues that the site was experiencing and implement those improvements to redesign the events site.

ROLE

UX Researcher

ACTIVITIES

Usability testing, Data synthesis, Research, Recruitment, Design, Prototyping, Stakeholder management

TIME SPAN

4 months

TOOLS

Adobe XD, Google Sheets, Zoom

Before redesign
System usability scale score: 64.8
After redesign
System usability scale score: 88.3
Overview
Process
Problem statement
The website's overwhelming and inconsistent filters and tags yield unhelpful results, while the search bar lacks a user-friendly Google-like experience for finding events. Confusing language, an unreliable calendar, and redundant IDK button further contribute to a subpar user experience.
Discover
Survey feedback
ASU has a pop up survey installed across its website which gives users the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience. We searched through comments related to the events site to help us discover the users perspective on the site.
Negative feedback comments
"I had no difficulty reserving my maximum of two complimentary tickets. However, I wanted to buy a third ticket that would be assigned with the other two tickets and did not find an option to do this."
"What does IDK mean? The categories for events make no sense."
“I could not find beetletjuice when searching for it even though I know its happening this weekend”
"The events site is so messy and cluttered. Theres way to much going on to get anything done"
Research
Initial planning
Target users
  • ASU alumni
  • Arizona residents
  • ASU students
Research methods
  • Survey data
  • Heatmap data
  • Benchmarking: Collecting the System usability score, satisfaction, and ease of use.
Research goals
01
Uncover why users are having issues finding specific events.
02
Determine if search functionality works as expected.
03
Discover users mental models and why they use ASU events
Heatmaps
Heatmap data was collected from hotjar.com. This heatmap data was used to indicate the most clicked on and frequented parts of the events site.
Insights
  • The Events heatmap for Desktop shows a lot of activity with the search bar and filters.
  • The Events heatmap for Mobile shows that users often use the hamburger menu in the main navigation, the search bar, the filters, and the event categories to navigate the site. It is interesting to see that the most used categories are “Free food”, “Open to the public”, “The Arts”, and “Go team”.
Usability testing of the original site
Details
Platform: Usertesting.com
Method: Unmoderated usability testing
Participants: 90
Quantitative metrics: System usability scale, Satisfaction, Ease of use
Example tasks
1.Find tickets or register for an event that might interest you.
2. Locate the event’s address and location.
3. How would you add this event to your calendar?
4. Find an upcoming ASU football game.
Data synthesis
Data was synthesized through creating clips of issues users were having and tagging them. With these tags, highlight reels were created to highlight the issues that users were facing
Testing insights
01
Participants  had a hard time locating the filters
They were wondering why filtering options were hidden under the search bar because they only become visible once it is clicked on.
02
Site terminology and language
The language on the site uses slang terms and phrases which doesn’t match the ASU brand and is confusing for some audiences.
03
Event tags and links
People understood what the links were when they were shown to them but they overall didn’t naturally use them while searching the site.
04
Overwhelming filters
The abundance of filtering options was overwhelming for some users. They felt they didn’t know where to start and whether they could select more than one at a time.
05
Finding events based on a specific date in the future is challenging
The calendar widget often malfunctions making it challenging for people to locate events on a specific date. People often missed that they had to hit search when selecting a date or date range on the calendar.
Design
UDS Design system
This site was built using building blocks from the unified design system for ASU.
High fidelity design
01
Filters
Collapsable and Categorized
Having collapsable filters makes the high amount of filtering options seem less daunting to the users.
More viewable and easy to reach
It is more viewable since it is in the side bar instead of hidden under the search like it was previously
02
Site terminology
Mental models
Terms were changed from ones that did not match users mental models to more appropriate ones, thanks to survey.
03
Event tags
Applied filters
Filters were hidden in search functionality but are now more openly displayed.
Clear filters
The option to clear filters when searching provides a more valuable search experience.
04
Calendar
Calendar location
Calendar is now located where the other filters are, so when the filter is applied the date is applied as well
More viewable and easy to reach
It is more viewable since it is in the side bar instead of hidden under the search like it was previously
05
Event description
Information hierarchy
Important information is displayed first and on time.
Tags
Tags are viewable in the description of the event as well.
Quantitative improvements
Quantitative metrics were collected from 90 participants during usability tests before and after the site was re designed.
System usability scale score
The System Usability Scale (SUS) provides a “quick and dirty”, reliable tool for measuring the usability.   It consists of a 10 item questionnaire with five response options for respondents; from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
Satisfaction rating
In every usability test satisfaction was measured on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being not at all satisfied and 7 being very satisfied.
Other projects
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Conducting a usability study of Arizona State University’s Brand guide.
Custee
Case study highlighting the building of a custom thriift clothing app.
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