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The NYU Usability Lab investigated the experience of first year students across the university through Zoom calls and written entries.
Project Background
Project Background
The goal of this research was to understand first-year students' experiences as they navigate life as recent arrivals to NYU, and to identify any patterns in their experiences that point to areas where the university can better support them.
Project timeframe: 6 months. September 2023 - March 2024.
Audience: NYU staff, faculty, and leadership
Stakeholders: Enrollment Management and Student Affairs
NYU Albert pronouns selection dropdown menu
The Study
The Study
Research Method: Diary Study
24 full-time, first year students
6 students were observed in their own environments as they submitted their personal information in Albert and navigated the Pronouns & Pronunciations page on Brightspace to see classmates' information.
During sessions, participants were asked to:
Go through the process of adding their name pronunciation and pronouns in Albert
Show where they'd expect to locate pronunciations and pronouns within Brightspace
Find additional resources on how they can add their pronunciation and pronouns
Research sessions concluded with a short interview to better understand the participant’s overall impressions and experiences.
Research Sessions: Sessions were conducted one-on-one remotely via Zoom web conferencing and recorded for post-session analysis. Sessions ran for approximately 20 minutes per participant.
Analysis: After speaking with a participant, the facilitator reviewed notes and highlighted key insights from each session. Cumulative impressions and ease of use were collected, along with specific sources of user frustration to help measure the overall usability of the process and highlight user pain points.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
Top takeaways from this research included:
Students found editing their personal information in Albert to be unintuitive. They were unsure how to add a recording and were surprised to discover the functionality located under "Edit My Pronouns". When participants only wanted to add a name recording or wanted to do so first, they wouldn’t know where to change it. It felt like they were stumbling upon it in the pronouns section.
Lab’s recommendation: Consolidate and simplify the edit options so that users can edit all fields at once when clicking into “Edit My Profile”.
Pronunciation & Pronouns resources went largely unnoticed and unused. When asked where they would go for help with “Pronunciations & Pronouns”, half of the participants clicked the “Adding your Pronunciation & Pronouns” help link. Others said they would email someone or were unsure where to go for help.
Lab’s recommendation: Add a link directing students to Albert so they can more easily upload their information.
All participants thought pronunciations and pronouns would be included in “Classlist.” In Brightspace, students strongly associated the inclusion of information on their classmates with "Classlist" and would assume that additional information simply isn’t available if it wasn’t listed on that page. Despite “Pronunciations & Pronouns” being right underneath “Classlist,” all participants ignored the tab and had to be given additional instructions to click it.
Lab’s recommendation: Consider hiding the “Classlist” page, relabeling the “Pronunciations & Pronouns” page to “Classlist” instead, and adding (mass) emailing features to the new page if possible.
Impact
Impact
The product team is implementing these changes and they are scheduled to go live in February 2023
These changes will impact at least 30,000 NYU students
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