University of British Columbia (UBC) Brand Website
User Research
The University of British Columbia Brand Website was initially launched in 2016 as a repository for designers, developers, communicators, writers and faculty members within the university to find information and downloadable assets that were "on-brand". This included colour palette, typography information, logos and signatures as well as writing and communications guides. The wealth of resources found in the site was created to help users efficiently complete tasks in their daily jobs such as creating university-wide posters, presentation decks and write consistently for the university without having to constantly ask for brand direction and support.
Challenge
After a year since the site was launched, it was apparent that most of the information could actually be found in the site but not immediately apparent, based on similar requests received on the online ticketing system from multiple users. Hence, the amount of resources available on the site overshadowed its usability, defeating the purpose of the site.
Process
We needed to know how to organize the information better on the site and learn more about the users' frustrations when using the site.
These are the steps we took to conduct our analysis:
- An analysis of the current tickets to the brand site to understand our users' pain points;
- Online survey to examine perceptions of the current site;
- Card sorting exercise to understand how we can organize information better;
- In-person usability test to understand design, information flow, site architecture and ease of use of the site
Findings
From the user research, the brand site was well received overall. Following an analysis of the online survey, card sorting exercise and in-person usability test, we divided our recommendations according to the following themes:
- Information Architecture
- Usability
- Downloadable Assets
- Content/Language