UMICH Votes
Understanding how 1st-time voters perceive information presented by UMICH Votes. How can we make the voting process less overwhelming?
UX Research // Strategy // Client Work
Role
UX Researcher
Sep. - Oct. 2023
5 weeks
Timeline
Skills
Usability Testing
Affinity Mapping
Prototyping
Storytelling
Team
5 UX Researchers
1 Project Manager
1 Project Coordinator
1 Project Advisor
Tools
Miro
Figma
Overview
The UMICH Votes Coalition represents the collaborative efforts of multiple organizations to encourage students to engage in the democratic process by voting. They want their resource to become a primary resource on registration and voting for students, but the website struggles with providing students the information they are looking for.
As a UX Researcher, I worked with our team to conduct usability testing to learn about students' current experiences with the website. We took these insights and presented recommendations the the UMICH Votes Coalition for how their website could better address the needs of students.
Background
The Current Website
The current UMICH Votes website was hastily redesigned in time for the Fall 2022 Elections. Because of this, some features work well for students and others not so well, but the UMICH Votes Coalition doesn’t know the specifics. They want user-testing data to formalize their understanding so they can relaunch their website in January 2024.
Initial Meeting with Client
To learn more about the client, the UMICH Votes Coalition, and where the project currently stands, we spoke to representatives of UMICH Votes to make sure we all had a shared understanding of the project goals and expectations.
Biggest Takeaways about UMICH Votes
Target users are students who are first-time voters
Serves students by directing them to relevant registration and voting information depending on their circumstances
Strives to make information clear and welcoming to reduce students’ anxiety about voting process
Aims to be a united and trustworthy source for faculty and students on campus
Thus, we asked:
How might we make the UMICH Votes website clear and not overwhelming for first-time voters?
User Research
User Testing
To learn more about users' expectations and experiences with the website, we developed a user-testing protocol and conducted user testing with 12 students. For user-testing, we implemented the think-out-loud approach to assess:
Exploratory Usability: user’s familiarity with the website and its navigation
Informational Usability: website’s ability to effectively communicate information about registration and voting
User Insights
1. Users are unclear about the separation between registration and voting information on the website, struggling to find what they want
2. Users experience frustration with excessive scrolling and a challenging navigation experience
3. Users struggle with reading and exploring the website content
4. Users struggle with finding FAQs that will answer their questions
Recommendations
Based on our findings from user testing, we provided recommendations that fell into the following 3 categories:
Redesign of Navigation Bar
Separate “Registration” and “Voting” tabs
➜ Users effortlessly grasp the website’s purpose and find information
Include “FAQ” tab
➜ Users can access FAQs no matter where they are on the website
Implement mega dropdown menu
➜ Users have clear visual of the contents of the website
Improve User Resources
Add search bar in FAQ
➜ Users can quickly look up information relevant to their question
Expand and categorize FAQ
➜ Users save time looking for specific information
Include glossary of common voting terms
➜ Users gain better understanding of the information on the website
Rearrange Website Layout and Add Graphics
Make headings bolded and more informative
➜ Users can more easily scan pages
Apply progressive disclosures
➜ Users with more background knowledge can avoid scanning lists/features they would rarely use
Incorporate graphics and images
➜ Users experience less fatigue compared to reading blocks of text
Challenges & Learnings
Keep the Client in the Loop
Given the short time frame of this project, we didn’t want to risk redoing anything if it didn’t align with the client’s goals and expectations. This made it important for us to stay in constant communication with the client. Eliciting feedback from our client at each step not only made sure we weren’t straying to far, but also kept the client informed about the progress being made.
Put Yourself Out There
I still find putting myself out there scary, but this project really showed me the importance of doing so. We were struggling with recruitment for user testing and only had a few sign-ups, so on the day of testing, I decided to go out and actively recruit people nearby. While this may have introduced some bias in our data, we decided it was more important for us to get as many people as possible for testing.
Orient Issues Around the User Experience
While we all had our own assumptions about what could be improved about the website, it was important for us to focus on the users and the struggles they were facing. This ensured that the recommendations we provided would address their problems, creating a more enjoyable user experience.