Data-based Decision Making Reflection

Picture
Artifact: SDSU / EDL Website redesign from ED TEC 590 
EDL Report
EDL Presentation

Project Description / Situation
My project partner, Steve Corbett and I, were tasked with redesigning the website for the SDSU Department of Educational Leadership (EDL). Our faculty contact, Dr. George Cameron told us that he had received informal feedback that the site contained outdated information, multiple copies of the same forms, and that the site was hard to navigate because the content was not well-organized. As a result, the EDL was concerned that the site would reflect poorly on their otherwise excellent program.

In order to determine what recommendations should be made, my partner and I chose to focus our analysis on two primary tools. We developed a survey for the users of the site to determine how they felt about the format, structure, navigation and branding of the current site and what they would like to see if / when the site were redesigned. We also conducted a benchmarking study using the EDL site and two other college websites to determine best practices. Steve took the lead on the benchmarking study and I took the lead on the survey. Together, we compiled the data that we gathered and proposed the changes that the analysis indicated needed to be made to improve the effectiveness and credibility of the EDL website.

Outcome
We distributed the 13 question survey via Survey Monkey to 209 potential respondents from various groups within the EDL program and staff. We received 58 responses to the survey - results of the survey and benchmarking indicated:
  • Content: not always current; topics not always relevant to the users; does not motivate visitors to learn more.
  • Navigation: not intuitive or meaningful; dead pages and links; easy to get lost or stuck - no “Home” page; missing page titles makes it hard to tell what page you are on; insufficient help support.
  • Brand: does not present a respectable brand image that advances the EDL department’s reputation; does not set it apart from others in the same field. Fortunately for EDL, respondents already have a positive image of the program based on colleague recommendations.
  • Benchmarking: although the other websites analyzed did not truly emulate best practices in all respects of website design, the SDSU EDL site scored lower than the others in most categories of the benchmarking study.
Recommendations to the EDL:
  • Site should: have clear, identifiable brand image; grab users’ attention and motivate; sell good reputation.
  • EDL needs to: provide the most recent data and forms; fix confusing or missing content; organize program content better; reduce number of clicks to get to information; fix broken links; label links appropriately; have a dedicated web designer.
  • EDL site should be redesigned in three phases:
    1. Immediate Needs
    2. Nice to Haves
    3. Future Considerations
 
Challenges:
One of the challenges of this analysis was getting feedback from the survey in the timeframe we needed. Because this was a summer class, many of the respondents we sent the survey to were on vacation or otherwise unable to reply in the short turnaround time. Still, we had a better than 25% response rate.

Growth:
As an instructional designer, I tend to have a natural eye for the usefulness and appearance of what I create. When I access websites of any kind for personal use or business, my tendency is to think about its functionality, what I like or don’t like about it and the way it looks. I have conducted many needs analyses for my job, but I had never conducted a formal analysis for a website redesign. The EDL project has given me experience in a different aspect of analysis using data-based decision making.

Sidenote: The EDL website was redesigned in Fall 2009 by ED TEC 795A students using many of the recommendations that were provided in our Summer 2009 report.





Copyright © 2010 by Janet L. Saman for the Department of Educational Technology at San Diego State University. All Rights Reserved.