Re-design NYIT Website
- Thesis Project -
Year
2019
Role
UX/ UI Designer
Team
Team
Project Background
One of the main reasons for having a website for schools is to accommodate more new students by giving them information about the curriculum, rules, etc. Likewise, I visited the NYIT website to see and understand what the graduate program entails. However, it was quite difficult to find graduate program information since the overall navigation flow was not clear for me from both a prospective and a new student perspective.
To be honest, as a current student, they still don’t have proper navigation or content available for prospective, new, and current students. Personally, I do not use the NYIT website as they do not offer any useful content for current students. For these reasons, I want to improve the NYIT website by upgrading it from a student’s perspective.
Goal
Re-design the NYIT website student-centric.
Action Plan
• Understand the NYIT current website
• Collect all data on the site and analyze the detail of the contents
• Conduct surveys with current students and faculty members
• Find out visitor’s patterns based on analytics
• Deconstruct the NYIT current website
• Set the detail of the contents for the website (Text, Image, link)
• Redesign website based on current template
Challenge
Redesign NYIT Digital Art & Design website based on the current website.
Project Scope
In order to manage time, I planned how to develop my project before I start.
Market Research
I researched other school websites and I found that they usually display their student work with profile pictures and also their alumni pages are listed by their graduation year.
User Research
1. Survey
After the market research, I wanted to know how the current students think about our school website.
12 students participated in the survey, they said mostly visit our website 1-2 times a month because they couldn't find any relevant content that they want, but they are willing to visit more if there's useful content on our website. Also, what I found is the students want to see the previous student's work and achievements.
2. Persona and Empathy Map
In order to understand the students, I created personas for new and current students to see them separately. Through 'empathy mapping', I found some findings and solutions.
Persona
Empathy Map
Mental Model
My solution is to display student's work, find out useful content and also update the content updated more frequently.
Data Analytics and User Pattern
I deconstructed the NYIT website by its title, image, link, and even navigation bar in order to see the composition of the school website. Also, by using website data analytics, I see user patterns.
Sitemap and Information Architecture
I set up sitemap and information architecture to provide information about the pages, and other files on the NYIT website.
Sketch and Low-Fi Prototype
I set up sitemap and information architecture to provide information about the pages, and other files on the NYIT website.
Final Solution
This project is a real project and I was working with the NYIT website staffs, I had limitation changing website template. So, after several meeting with the chair, professor, and website manager, we decided to make a blog for UX/UI department so we can manage the blog using expression engine and also update our content more frequently.
In addition, we combined NYIT main navigation and blog navigation on the NYIT UX/UI department website and also UX/UI blog, users can easily go back and forth between those two websites.
High-Fidelity Prototype
I set up sitemap and information architecture to provide information about the pages, and other files on the NYIT website.
Summary
After completed this thesis project, I kept adding content to UX/UI blog webpage and it is on live now!
Currently still other students are working on the blog and tried to keep updated. The good news is because of this project, more other department blogs are coming and their students will manage their blog. I am glad that my project is not just a project, but I can make it real and expand to other department.
It was not easy to work with school because I needed to get a permission from the top everytime, However, I learned a lot and I'm happy that I could work with real staffs and engineers.
https://blogs.nyit.edu/uxui (NYIT UX/UI Blog)