C A S E S T U D YAccessScience

Client: McGraw–Hill Education

The Solution

McGraw-Hill Education partnered with the

Apollo Matrix team to redesign and re-

platform their product to better engage

users and increase adoption. The design

approach is user-centric, focused primarily

on college students, and appealing to

their expectations and behaviors. Apollo’s

redesign of AccessScience is user-friendly

and engaging. The site can be viewed at

AccessScience.com.

The Challenge

AccessScience, by McGraw-Hill Education, is a comprehensive digital resource of ÃV�i�Ì�wV����Ü�i`}i�vi>ÌÕÀ��}�L>Ã�V���ÌÀ�`ÕVÌ�ÀÞ��>ÌiÀ�>�]�iÝÌi�`i`�>ÀÌ�V�i�i�ÌÀ�iÃ]�>�`���Ûi���ÕÀ�>��V�Ì>Ì���Ã�����Õ�Ì�«�i�ÃV�i�Ì�wV�wi�`ð�The extensive database provides nearly

ten thousand articles on science written by top scientists across the world. With 38 Nobel prize-winning

contributors, this top-notch content provides a great resource for AP high school and college students in their

coursework and research.

McGraw-Hill Education wanted to increase adoption of its subscription-based product for libraries and

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changing trends of websites and user behaviors.

Previously, McGraw-Hill placed its strategic focus on the librarian, or purchaser, of its subscription service.

What McGraw-Hill found was that librarians based their purchasing decisions primarily on student usage.

McGraw-Hill realized that the focus of the new design needed to be the end-user – the college or high school

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Usability Testing ProcessTo better understand how users utilized the AccessScience site, we conducted usability testing with �ÕÀ�iÞi�ÌÀ>V���}�«>ÀÌ�iÀ]�/�L���/iV�����}Þ°• Be easy to use so students can

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looking for

• Keep students engaged during

their visit

• Make students want to come

back to the site

The questions we sought to answer with the usability study were: • Are users of the site able to

perform assignment-related

tasks easily?

• Do users make use of all

relevant information as they

attempt to complete tasks?

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site return to use it again in

the future?

The usability study with iÞi�ÌÀ>V���}�«À�Û�`i`���Ã�}�ÌÃ�

into user behaviors and product features for an informed

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Tactics

We started the project with a light rebrush of the home page and

secondary pages to improve overall look and feel. This revamp to the

visual design addressed some immediate UX concerns, which allowed

us to prepare for the transition to a new CMS platform where we could

further improve the user experience.

With our eye-tracking partner, Tobii Technology, we conducted usability

testing so McGraw-Hill Education could better understand their users

and what they are looking for in their learning experience.

“...we launched the new

version of Access Science fully

in November and we were

pleased to have done the

usability study. It helped inform

many of the choices we made

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McGraw-Hill

Testing took place at the Tobii Technology research center in Falls Church, Virginia. The seven college-aged participants were recruited via Craigslist or our company website. Testers were offered a gift card in return for their participation in the study.

�ÕÀ��}�ÌiÃÌ��}�ÃiÃÃ���Ã]�>�/�L�����`iÀ>Ì�À�wÀÃÌ�V>��LÀ>Ìi`�Ì�i�iÞi�ÌÀ>V���ing equipment for each individual. With their eyes tracked, users then V��«�iÌi`�wÛi�ÕÃi�V>ÃiÃ�L>Ãi`����Ì�i�À�Ã����>À�ÌÞ�Ì��ÌÞ«�V>��ÕÃiÀ�Ì>Ã�Ã�and the breadth of site features the user would encounter. This allowed Apollo to observe how users interacted with many different aspect of the site.

Following the session, we asked each participant a number of follow up questions. How did users go about their tasks? What features did they focus on, and what was their opinion of the site overall? These respons-es informed our site redesign strategy.

A heat map shows how long the ÕÃiÀ�}>âiÃ�>Ì�ViÀÌ>���>Ài>ð�,i`�Ã��ÜÃ�>����}iÀ�}>âi°�7i�Ãii�a strong emphasis on the sign ���>Ài>�>�`�Ì�i�Ãi>ÀV��L�Ý�>Ã�ÌiÃÌiÀÃ�ÃÌ>ÀÌi`�Ì�i�wÀÃÌ�Ì>Ã�°

Finding

• Users on the homepage were drawn to and focused heavily on the search box, ignoring most other features. In fact, the login box was the only other home page area that received attention. No user scrolled below the search box.

• Aside from the search box, users also noticed the “browse by topic” feature, but most ignored the “browse by letter”

• The browse topics pages were often visited, but many users did not notice the “for further study” section on the right of the page. This was viewed only 2/19 times.

Insight

• Users looked immediately for the search box and wanted access to the main functionality of the Access Science site right away. Once they

they were unlikely to keep scrolling, so any important content should be presented above the search box.

• AccessScience considered removing the “browse by letter” feature entirely, because it was rarely used.

• The visual design did not do a good job of emphasizing the “further study” section. It blended too much into the rest of the page and did not look like a distinct feature.

Action

• Two separate homepages were designed; one for subscribers and one for non-subscribers. The non-subscriber home page had a graphics-heavy slide show displayed above the search box, designed

subscriber page was less graphics-heavy and presented the search box immediately.

• Instead of removing “browse by letter”, it was moved to a lower position and de-emphasized in the

use it still could, but it was not in the way of the majority of users who did

• The header of the section was enlarged, the visual and color of the

main section was more integrated into the overall visual style to further differentiate the sections.

• The search results page had an icon by each result indicating what type of result it was. A legend at the bottom of the page explained the meanings of these icons. However, users rarely scrolled down to this icon and as a result didn’t know what type of results they were clicking on.

•information had two suggestions: add Boolean logic to search, and add a

functioned similarly to “control-f”.

• the multimedia offerings. However, there was some inconsistency with how media was displayed.

• Participants appreciated having a bibliography included in the article view. However, there was uncertainty

from.

• The fact that users rarely scrolled down to see the icon legend pointed to bad design in the original site. It also led to the question of why the icons existed at all.

• The AccessScience team had previously thought about adding these features, but questioned whether they would really be used. This study clearly demonstrated their utility.

• The content and multimedia strategy of AccessScience was well received overall. There were some inconsistencies such as video content sometimes being displayed in a new window and sometimes playing in the same one.

• Students like knowing where information comes from, and consistently looked for a bibliography at the bottom of articles.

•removed and replaced with a simple phrase in parentheses next to the search results saying clearly what each result’s media type was.

• Boolean search operators were

feature to search within an article.

• Media display strategy was standardized across all pages, while keeping the content the same and making no other major changes to videos/graphics.

• The author of the article was more clearly emphasized, as were the sources cited, to make it clear both who wrote the article and where their information came from.

We’d love to create a remarkable product for you.

To learn more about Apollo Matrix, Inc., please contact:

Pete Johnson, President & CEOč«������>ÌÀ�Ý]���V°*iÌiJ>«�����>ÌÀ�Ý°V��Î䣰ÈäÓ°£Ó£ä

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Results

McGraw-Hill Education gained a better insight

into the AccessScience user base. They were

able to retain features that students loved and

create a better user experience for students. The

redesigned site launched in November 2013

and was met with positive response. McGraw

Hill won a PROSE award from the Association

of American Publishers in the category of 2013

Best Multidiscipline Platform/ eProduct for the

AccessScience site.

Create Remarkable Products

Apollo Matrix, Inc. brings together the best in branded user-centric experience design and technology.

We are a full service digital agency specializing in native mobile and web applications for startups and

mid-to-large businesses. Our Washington, DC-based design and technical consultancy leverages its offshore

development center specializing in analytics, mobile and online software product development.

We are structured to mentor and grow our professionals and not only attract and retain -- but develop --

highly skilled design, software and data professionals.