[IxDA Discuss] How would you use this report?

[White, Jeff]

It seems like the report, if it's the only research you have to go by,
should really drive the features and functionality that the sites
deliver. I would start by matching what the report says with the
business goals of these sites and go from there. You could use the
findings of the report, balanced with your business goals, to derive
page hierarchy, messaging, etc.

And, maybe the data could be used to develop personas. Does the report
break down the expectations of prospective students based on what "type"
of student they are? For example, maybe a freshman, from in-state, has
totally different needs than a sophomore who is considering a transfer
from another state or country, etc. Seems like data like this, if you
have it, could lend itself well to personas. And since you don't have
much time to do other research, those personas could be really helpful
as you go through the process.

Are you supposed to totally redesign the sites or just "reface them"? If
it's the latter, seems like you're being set up for failure in a way.
Re-branding poor content isn't really going to help much, and I hope
your stakeholders realize this.

At any rate, HTH and good luck.

Jeff


>>
Hi folks,

Just had a meeting with my boss about our process and it looks like we
need
to 'reface' 30 sites within the next 6 months, so... yeah time is gonna
be
short. That means I'm not going to be able to do really any user
research
that takes any amount of time at all. I think I'm going to try and use
Todd
Warfel's task analysis grid for these, seems like it might be a good
fit.

Anyway - what he did give me is a white paper by Noel-Levitz entitled
"What
do prospective students expect from your web site and e-communications
program?" It's the result of 1000 phone interviews of two groups,
graduate
and upcoming H.S. seniors. (Our sites are marketing sites for our
colleges).


There seems to be some good data in there, and some good
recommendations. My
question is, what is the best way to use the resulting data in this
report?
The sample size is significant, which I would think would be good. Seems
like the recommendations based on this data would be fairly sound.

It doesn't seem like this would be appropriate data for personas. Any
comments are appreciated.

Thanks

Tom
>>