Interview: MCDB&G Web site redesign

This is the 16^th in a several-part series of interviews with communicators who have redesigned or updated their Web sites. If you have redesigned your site or have a site to suggest for these interviews, let us know.

In this edition: Tami Jauert on the Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology and Genetics Web site

What were your reasons for redesigning the site?
A big factor was that the previous site was almost 15 years old and looked it. The site had changed hands at least three times and had been pieced together by each person. It was hard to navigate through and worse yet, it was not updated on a regular basis - which unfortunately meant some pages hadn't been touched in years.

Another factor was that the program structure had changed dramatically since the site originated. The site needed to reflect those changes to help avoid student confusion.

What kind of user research or user testing did you do?
There was a committee that was there to help make decisions about content and structure. The committee had a hard time agreeing, so we narrowed down the target audience and asked them.

We decided the site was mostly directed to students who were already in the program. Incoming students would be directed to another site for application materials etc... So we asked about 10 students to help. We tried to get students who were at different levels of the program and came from different backgrounds. We met with each student individually, giving them index cards with different words and phrases on (things the committee thought should be on the site). The students were asked to decide which things should be "headers" and which things should fall under each "header". They were also given a few blank cards that they could write on - if they felt there was anything missing. In addition, students were allowed to cut items they didn't think needed to be there or felt they would go to another site for.

We tracked the results for each student. Also asking questions about what kinds of visuals were appealing etc...  Most of the students categorized things similarly and in most cases cut the same items. This made it easy for the committee to make decisions about the final site structure.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you get past it?
The biggest challenge was "design by committee." However, it was easy to get past once they agreed the target audience should have some input. Some committee members were skeptical about this process - not sure how the student research was going to help... but when the results came back, there was very little left to discuss.

How are you evaluating the redesign's success?
We are seeing a large increase to the number of return viewers to our site. But the biggest thing, is that we no longer receive the almost daily complaints about the site not working and the information being outdated or incorrect.