UCLA Optimists Report

7/28/2019 UCLA Optimists Report

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The UCLA Optimists Website

User Research Report

Project Team

Brent Ferreira

Lindsey Sommer

Annie Tang

Xiaopeng Xu

Tel: +1-310-622-5679

Email: is279-optimists[at]googlegroups.com

March 17th, 2013


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UCLA Optimists Website User Research Report

UCLA Marketing & Special Events

10920 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1000

Los Angeles

CA 90024

Executive Summary

Our user research for the Optimists website focused on the sites bounce-back

rate which currently hovers at around 75% for most pages. Our methodology

employed focus groups to gauge user expectations, reactions and suggestions in

regards to the content and architecture of the website. After consultation with Mr.

Takahashi, we determined that the Optimists site would benefit most from direct user

input rather than a pop-up or card sorting methodology.

Focus groups were comprised of users from three potential user audiences:

prospective students, current students and alumni. Each group was made up of three

to five potential users, who were asked to navigate the website freely and participate

in a series of specific exercises. This included navigation to the UCLA homepage, as

well as locating specific alumni or donors within the Optimists website. During thesestudies, we asked for participant feedback about their experience using the page, as

well as ways they think it could be improved.

From our research, our group recommends four improvements to enhance

users overall engagement with the site:

(1) Improve relatability;

(2) Including mixed media;

(3) Creating more relative links within the UCLA ecosystem and without; and

(4) Adding minor improvement to the sites overall design.

First, unique content will entice users to engage with the site more than they are

currently. As suggested by the sites bounce rate, the Optimists website is unable to

keep users engaged with the sites current content. Together with new content,

implementing other forms of media: video, audio, etc. would also peek users interests,

enticing them to investigate and perhaps participate within the community.


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On a more technical note, many users took issue with the hyperlink from the

Optimists profiles pages to the UCLA homepage. If the primary goal of the site is to

convince users to donate UCLA, its imperative users are able to find the pertinent

donation details more easily. Many focus group participants echoed this sentiment.

Users also expressed concern with some aspect of the sites design. While most

like the sites overall aesthetic, some suggested certain tweaks to enhance user

experience. With these changes, we believe the sites bounce rate will reduce

drastically as well as enticing users to participate within the UCLA community more

than they were previously.


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Contents

1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................6

2. Methodology...................................................................................................................8

2.1. Analytic Analysis........................................................................................................8

2.2. Persona.........................................................................................................................8

2.3. Focus Group................................................................................................................9

2.4. Participants..................................................................................................................9

3. Analytic Analysis........................................................................................................10

3.1. Visit Analysis...........................................................................................................10

3.2. Traffic Analysis........................................................................................................11

3.3. Search Engine Result Analysis...............................................................................12

4. Focus Group Results...................................................................................................13

4.1. Prospective Students................................................................................................13

4.2. Current Students.......................................................................................................15

4.3. Alumni.......................................................................................................................17

5. Recommendations.......................................................................................................19

5.1. Improve Relatability................................................................................................19

5.2. More relevant links to UCLA ecosystem and outside it.....................................19

5.3. Website Structure.....................................................................................................20

5.4. More mixed media...................................................................................................21

Appendix I: Optimists Focus group agenda and questions..................................................22


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1. IntroductionThe Optimists campaign and subsequent website was established in 2011 with

the hope of inspiring alumni and donors to take active roles in UCLAs diverse

community. By highlighting other well-known, successful alumni and faculty, the

campaigns ultimate goal, along with enticing prospective students to enroll, is to

encourage users to donate to UCLA. Although well designed, the Optimists website

does not make this intention clear.

As part of our user research, we conducted three focus groups--each comprised

of a particular nuclear representative of the Optimists campaigns target audiences:

alumni (who also represent prospective donors), prospective students, and current

UCLA undergraduate and graduate students. During each session, every group was

asked a series of questions, starting with their general web habits (websites they like;

why they like them; what tasks they try to accomplish on the web, etc.) and latercovering specific aspects of the Optimists website. When testing the website, users

were allowed to first browse the site freely and later, taken through guided exercises

to test the sites overall architecture.

The goal of this research was to solve the websites bounce-back issue. As Mr.

Takahashi explained to our group in his initial client pitch, the Optimists site currently

suffers from a bounce rate around 75%, with users accessing the website then

immediately leaving within a span of 2-3 seconds. Per this goal, our groups

deliverables hinged on recommendations for quick improvements to the site. By

quick improvements, our intention for the project--rather than creating wireframes

for a substantial redesign--was to focus on the feedback gleaned from user groups to

deliver practical solutions that might solve the Optimists sites immediate concerns.

Additionally, most users agreed that the structure and design of the site was well done,

giving us no inclination a substantial redesign of the website was necessary. Our

group believes the Optimists campaign can improve drastically from our research andrecommendations. We feel strongly that through these improvements not only can the

website reduce the percentage of users bouncing off the homepage but also improve

the campaign, itself, by clarifying the sites intention and evolving its content perusers concerns.

Please refer to Figure 1 and Table 1 for the details of project timeline.


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Figure1ProjectTimelineforOptimistsWebsiteUserResearch

Table1EventOutlinesforOptimistsWebsiteUserResearch

Event Time Place Participants

Project Pitch Jan 11th

, 2013 GSEIS Building Mike, IS 279 students

Kick-off Meeting Feb 21st, 2013 Wilshire Center Mike, User Research Team

Analytics Analysis Feb 17th

- 22nd

, 2013 User Research Team

Persona Feb 15

th

- 18

th

, 2013 User Research TeamFocus Group I Mar 2

nd, 2013 GSEIS Building User Research Team,

prospective students

Focus Group II Mar 8th

, 2013 GSEIS Building User Research Team,

current students

Focus Group III Mar 9th

, 2013 GSEIS Building User Research Team,

alumni

Presentation Mar 18th

, 2013 Wilshire Center Mike team, User Research

Team


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2. Methodology2.1. Analytic Analysis

Data of a website can tell stories based on the rise and fall of visits. We used

data automatically collected by Google Analytics on the Optimists website for further

analysis. Our research may focus on the analysis of long-range trends related to the

website. By analyzing the trends for visits, bounce rate, traffic sources as well as

keywords, we can find out the actual user behaviors when exploring the website, and

make recommendations based on that.

2.2. PersonaTo synthesize the various opinions of the focus group members we have created

three personas: The Prospective Student, The Current Student, and The Alumnus.

Each are emblematic of the viewpoints of their associated group and are based off theprofiles of actual participants. Identifying information has been changed and stock

photographs are used for anonymity.These personas summarize the scenario of each

focus group, but in no way should be substitute for the more detailed research

findings found later in this report.

Each persona is broken down into biographical information,Positive

Takeaways, and Content Needs. Biographical data includesName, Occupation,Age,

andRelation to UCLAthe minimum information needed, we believe, to put a face

on the average user from each target audience. Another component,Positive

Takeaways, lists what that particular focus group enjoyed about the website orfeatures they wanted to stay same. As forContent Needs, this portion of the persona

broadly addresses the issues or problems users had with the Optimists site after using

it. As noted in the included images (Figures 2), the content needs are relevant to all

focus groups. These issues will be elaborated further in Key Questions and

Responses and Recommendations.


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Figure2SamplescriptforFocusGroup

2.3. Focus GroupIn order to conduct user-experience research on the different target audiences,

we conducted three focus groups: prospective students, current students, and alumni.

Each interviewee was informed of the research purpose at the start of each focus

group. To ensure the accuracy of research results, the participants were notified that

all their responses would be confidential and that all reactions, positive or negative,

were encouraged.

As shown in Appendix I, we prepared 19 questions for each focus group. We

began by investigating the browsing behavior of our users. Then we showed them

videos and hard-copy examples from the Optimists campaign such as magazine ads.

Most importantly the team led them to the Optimists website. Our moderators asked

for their impressions of the website and navigation functions. At the end, everyinterviewee had the chance to talk freely on their ideas related to the website.

2.4. ParticipantsThere were a total of eleven focus group participants. They were pooled from

friends and acquaintances of the user-research team. To make the process as unbiased

as possible, the participants were not briefed about the Optimists website or the

teams relationship to UCLA Marketing & Special Events until the start of the focus

group interviews.


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Prospective Students (3 respondents)

Some prospective undergraduates, junior college students One prospective graduate student, working professional Participant age ranges from early-to-late twenties Completely unfamiliar with the Optimist campaignCurrent Students (5 respondents)

Current UCLA graduate and undergraduate students Domestic and international students interviewed Potential future donors Participant age ranges from early-to-mid twenties Some familiar with the Optimist campaign, others notAlumni (3 respondents)

Some matriculated from undergraduate program within last few years One older working professional, matriculated from graduate program decades

ago

One recent graduate 2 matriculated from undergraduate program within last few years 1 older working professional, matriculated from graduate program decades ago Participant age ranges from early twenties to early fifties 1 recent alumnus is familiar with the Optimist campaign3. Analytic Analysis3.1. Visit Analysis

The total number of visits is 82,358 till Mar. 16th, 2013. Among them 79.80%

are new visitors. Figure 3 shows the trends of visits since the beginning of the website.

Although the number of visits is comparatively small from July 2012 to December

2012, there has been a significant increase since December 2012. Now the website

enjoy an average visit of above 1000 visit/day, it has been attracting the attention of

more and more people.

However, as shown in Figure 3, the bounce rate has long been a problem with

the website. Average bounce rate is as high as 83.65%. However, we have seen an

inconspicuous reduction in bounce rate since October 7th, 2012. Updates on contents

and website design may contribute to the slight go-down of bounce rate.


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Figure3Visit&BounceRateAnalysisofOptimistsWebsite

3.2. Traffic AnalysisTraffic analysis focused on the comparison of user visits from different traffic

sources. For the Optimists website, traffic mainly comes in three forms:

Direct traffic: directly entering the URL into the address bar

Referral traffic: clicking on the websites link through ads or socialnetworks

Organic traffic: opening the website through query results provided bysearch engines

Figure4TrafficAnalysisofdifferentsources

Figure 4 shows the trends of visits per traffic source. Most visitors come to the

website by directly entering the address. Ads on online websites such as

reference.com and andkon.com contribute to a large number of visits for the website.

Likewise some visitors come to the website by clicking results provided by a search

engine.

Social networks, such as Facebook, contribute only a very small amount of

visits to the website. Among those traffic sources, ad referral sources vary according

to the time period the ads are offered. Also, visits on social networks vary. Aside from

some special cases in which a popular link is posted to social networks, visits from

social networks are consistently low.


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3.3. Search Engine Result AnalysisUsing data from keywords such as, PageVisits, indicates the relationship of

certain visits and the keywords used to retrieve them. Table 2 shows the relationship

between keywords and visits | bounce rate related to those keywords. The highest

bounce rate is encurred from users lead to the Optimist site from a search engine,

intending to learn more about UCLA rather than the Optimists campaign. Those who

mistakenly or randomly stumble on the website tend to do nothing and leave the site

at once.

Table2Keywords-VisitrelationshipanalysisprovidedbyGoogle

Keyword Visits Pages/Visit BounceRate

ucla 4373 1.28 90.01%

uclaoptimists 525 2.10 74.29%uclaoptimist 205 1.55 69.76%

universityofcalifornialosangeles 181 1.20 93.92%

annaleefisher 157 1.61 59.87%

ucla.edu/optimists 94 1.39 76.60%

ucla.edu 93 1.46 86.02%

uclauniversity 70 1.49 90.00%

uclatheoptimists 63 1.46 77.78%


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4. Focus Group Results4.1. Prospective Students

Figure5PersonafortheProspectiveStudent

Summarized Responses

I. Do you like the website? Is there something that stands out about it?

Though users of this group praised the ease of navigation, they thought the site

navigation was below their maturity level. They speculated that this was geared

toward teenagers because of the simplicity of the content. In addition, they were

ambivalent on their feelings regarding the compilation of famous people on the

website. They felt unclear about what the message of Optimists was and therefore

felt a bit confused during their exploration of the site.

II. What do you think the goal of this website is?

Participants were unsure if website creators were looking for prospective

students or potential donors. Again, they cited that the message was ambiguous.

The group members then critiqued that the goal of the website was less task-oriented

and more for bragging-rights. They stated they would be more satisfied with less of

this ostentatious content.

III. Would the website entice you more to come to UCLA?

Age:"20

Community"college"

student,"Advocacy"

non7profit"staff

member

Focus)Group)I).)Persona)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))The)Prospec4ve)Student

easy7to7use

Youth7oriented Some"racial"diversity

Good"ad"campaign"for"bus"

kiosks

More"informaEon"about"

UCLA Careers/departments"of"

opEmists

Occupa4on

Content"need:

Name:"Yasmin

Rela4onship)to)UCLA

ProspecEve"

undergrad,"thinking"

of"applying

PosiEve"Takeaways:


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The group members unanimously replied, no. From their impression of the

site, UCLA makes it seem impossible to become someone like an Optimist.

Likewise, though the users were aware this URL is an offshoot of the larger university

website, they felt the connection to UCLA was unclear. This is due to their opinion

that the profile summaries of each Optimist focused too much on the their careersoutside of UCLA.

IV. Was the information interesting?

This was ambivalently answered as the participants only thought the Optimists

with UCLA-related content on their profiles were of interest. They thought the

summaries were too wordy and preferred bullet points because they only wanted

highlights. There was also no desire to share this content on social media.

V. Would you want more info? Less? Same?

Focus group members wanted the same information, but presented differently

than is currently portrayed. They did think the bus stop ad campaign was intuitive

because people in this scenario have the time to wait, read, and inquire about the

Optimists. But the users also reiterated that the message was still confusing, so why

would they want to research it?

VI. What do you think of this method [clicking on the question link that is within each

profile] used to direct you to the main UCLA site?

Participants believed the link should take a user somewhere with content more

relevant to the Optimist, perhaps the department website of that person's major. They

expected a direct answer to the question asked on the link, but instead were

disappointed to be taken the general UCLA homepage.

(Figure/screenshot of the question link in a profile)

VII. What do you think of these particular Optimists? Can you relate to them?

All users felt they could not connect with the profiled people, because theywere or are at the top of their field. The focus group felt they could not be as brilliant

as the highlighted Optimists. As prospective students it was off-putting for them to

see people at the peak of their careers, while the students themselves are just starting

out. They preferred to see people more like them.

VIII. Does this fit with your definition of an interactive website?

The participants strongly felt this was not an interactive experience. Some even

critiqued it was too antiquated for their sensibilities. They wished for customization

where a user can drag and drop the Optimist thumbnails. Additionally, the prospective


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students wanted a responsive carousel that slides on-command when a cursor hovers

over the revolving panel, and pauses when the cursor moves away from it. Likewise

they advised that when mousing over a thumbnail, a pop-up balloon should appear

with a preview of the images and text within the profile (much like how Netflix

allows for informative pop-up balloons to occur when a user hovers over a movieposter).

4.2. Current Students

Figure6PersonafortheCurrentStudent

Summarized Responses

Although not necessarily donors, current students are future alumni and thus

integral to our research concerning users engagement with the Optimists website.

Current students, perhaps more than any other group, seem hyper-aware of

advertising media, especially that which is affiliated with UCLA. Simply, if one can

impress UCLA undergraduate and graduate students with advertisement related to

UCLA, they are doing an excellent job!


Users seemed to agree that the site was well designed and looked professional.Most liked how minimal it was, making use of UCLAs distinct color palette without

Age:"24

Grad"student,"UCLA"

Library"assistant

Focus)Group)II).)Persona))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))The)Current)Student

Looks"professionally"made

Jackie"Robinson"video"would"

make"her"curious"to"

invesgate"site Color"paleEe"impressive

More"audio/visual"media

Occupa9on

Content"need:

Name:"Mackenzie

Rela9onship)to)UCLA

First"year"master,"sll"

geng"to"know"the"

school,"not"emoonally"

invested"yet

Posive"Takeaways:


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overwhelming them with information or content. However, one user remarked that

once they scrolled to the bottom of the site, one profile comprised a space suitable for

three, making the site appear unfinished or a work in progress. Users also agreed that

the manner in which the tiles organized was not instantly apparent.

II. What do you think the goal of the website is?

Like most users we tested, current students believed the main motive behind the

site was to entice prospective students to come to UCLA. One user even commented

that the website was trying to show off. For him, the personas and the content came

off as braggadocious and not inspiring. When prodded as to whether they thought

the goal of the site might be to motivate people to donate to UCLA, most participants

did not agree. Some stated that if the goal of the site was to inspire donations, this

intention should be clear from the beginning.

III. Would the website entice you to donate to UCLA?

When asked whether the Optimists site would inspire them to donate, most

speculated that it would not. Some pointed out that the inclusion of certain Optimists

was not only as a source of confusion, but also an aspect of the site that turned them

away. To this particular user, icons like James Dean or James Franco, no matter how

famous, could not convince him that UCLA deserves his donation. As in other focus

groups, the current students did not necessarily believe that such figures were great

because they went to UCLA. Rather, it appeared to them that the Optimists campaign

was trying to say that UCLA was great because these people attended the university.

A slight difference but an important one.


Participants of this focus group echoed the sentiment that seemed to permeate

each study: the notion that each notable persons content could be something they

might find from Wikipedia. If the so-called Optimists had a strong connection to

UCLA, users were interested in seeing some other kinds of content: personal quotes,

archival material, etc. Anything that might substantially show that their time at UCLA

made the Optimists who they are.

V. What do you think of these particular Optimists? Can you relate to them?

Surprisingly, most current students did not know who many of the current

Optimists were. However, in terms of their relatability most participants agreed that

other, less wealthier, or less famous people would be more relatable than the current

group. On a technical note, participants liked how from hovering a cursor over a

persons tile on the homepage, they could learned about what field the Optimist

excelled in.


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4.3. Alumni

Figure7PersonafortheAlumni

Summarized Response


Overall, the alumni participants thought the website was simple and clean

looking. They did however, have several critiques to offer. They expressed concerns

regarding the brightness of the yellow background in combination with blue font.

Several participants pointed out that it was slightly hard on the eyes, and suggested

perhaps a slightly less bright yellow. They were also confused by the Radio button

found in the top right corner. Finally, in the current iteration of the Optimists site, thealumni pointed out that the bottom of the main page appears to be missing two extra

tiles.

II. What do you think the goal of this website is?

The alumni assumed the main goal of the site was to direct attention to famous

alumni, and to indicate that UCLA is a place where anything is possible. If the main

focus of the page was to inspire alumni to donate, they indicated this was NOT clear

and a wasted opportunity. They suggested that a solution to this ambiguity might be to

subtly integrate the ability to donate on the page by having the profiles link to theUCLA donation page (How will you inspire others?). Additionally, they would like

Age:"50

Paleontologist,"

community"college"

professor

Focus)Group)III).)Persona))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))The)Alumni

Simple,"clean"design

Would"share"on"social"media

Happy"with"current"amount"of"text"or"even"less

David"Geffen's"profile"best"

example"of"available"content"

on"Opmist"site

Inspired"to"donate

Want"a"way"to"donate

Occupa8on

Content"need:

Name:"ScoJ

Rela8onship)to)UCLA

Alumnus"who"

matriculated"from"

master's"program,"

proud"of"being"Bruin

Posive"Takeaways:


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to see a Give option (as opposed to Donate) on the main Optimists page in the

form of: VIDEO| RADIO|GIVE.

III. Would the website entice you more to donate to UCLA?

Participants felt that yes, this site would inspire them to donate. They also

expressed an interest in sharing the page with others interested in joining the UCLA

as well as through social media.


After being asked their opinion of the information presented in the Optimist

profiles, the alumni indicated that they hadnt really read them carefully enough to

fully answer. The reason for this was because the color/text combination was hard to

read, and the font too small. Additionally, some alumni felt that the paragraph formatis too long and text heavy to invite easy reading.

V. Would you want more info? Less? Same?

As mentioned above, some alumni indicated that the long paragraph format

presented too much information during casual browsing. Others indicated that they

were fine with the amount of information. Suggested alternatives included two to

three sentences with a read more option (which might then open a dropdown

section).

VI. What do you think of this method [clicking on the question link that is within each

profile] used to direct you to the main UCLA site?

When asked to explore the link found within each optimist profile, all alumni

participants were surprised to be taken to the UCLA homepage. Instead, they were

hoping for more information about the featured individual. One participant expressed

particular interest in the David Geffen profile, indicating that more information about

him would be good. Additionally several participants desired the window to open on a

new browser tab, instead of the same one.

VII. What do you think of these particular Optimists? Can you relate to them?

Overall, the alumni did not feel that the Optimists featured on the site were

relatable, other than having gone to UCLA and thus were not relevant to their lives.

Even for the alumni or faculty that they were not familiar with, they assumed that

being famous was a common thread throughout all featured individuals. When asked

if they would be interested in less famous alumni, all participants said yes.

VIII. Does this fit with your definition of an interactive website?


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Alumni liked the ability to share pages on social media, but overall found the

page minimally interactive.

5. Recommendations5.1. Improve Relatability

A lot of users had issues with the sites content. When we asked if the

highlighted Optimists were relatable, at least one user in every group responded no.

Some even suggested that new Optimists might be less well-known people.

Perhaps if highlighted alums were less recognizable, users might have more incentive

to interact with the site.

One user liked the David Geffen page because it had a link to current newsrelated to him.

Many users alluded to the notion that a lot of the info about the current Optimistscould be found on Wikipedia, and that they would be more likely to go

Wikipedia to find such info.

In two of the groups, users uttered the phrase famous people pejoratively.There was a sense that UCLA was highlighting certain people for their fame, not

necessarily for what they did or learned at UCLA. Simply, that they were famous

and coincidentally happened to be UCLA Alumni.

Some suggested that Optimists might not be at the top of their field. Weunderstood this to mean that perhaps Optimists might be graduates whove gone

on to do something meaningful/impactful aside from being the head of theirdepartment or a famous actor. Or perhaps we could highlight current students

that are doing interesting things on or off campus.

Recommendation: Unique Content. The user research seems to echo the idea oneuser specified: same amount of content but differently presented. In our view,

the aesthetics of the site work well, and most users seemed to agree. Our

recommendation would call for another group of Optimists who are more

ordinarily extraordinary. People who work in the community, students with

compelling backgrounds, alumni working in their fields, etc., together with the

more famous, well recognized Optimists the site currently exhibits. Thisdichotomy between the two groups might entice users to engage with the site

more with content that would be unique to the site. Additionally, potential donor

might be more inspired by these less recognizable Optimists, especially if their

current students or alumni with compelling backgrounds and/or exploits.

5.2. More relevant links to UCLA ecosystem and outside itParticipants in general felt that there were missed opportunities in the available

external links. They were dissatisfied with such a limited number of links to the

UCLA ecosystem and outside it.


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Users stumbling upon the site may not have any association to UCLA, and maycome from outside the sphere of being a potential student, faculty or staff

member. They can merely be interested in the life or professional career of an

Optimist.

Recommendation: Increase the number of links to other related websites, thatspeak to the biographical and professional aspect of the Optimists lives. To

exemplify, the site can link to the Wikipedia, IMDb, LinkedIn, an Optimists

official company or institutional page, or even official website. For a professor,

the Optimist profile page can link the user to their faculty page.

To gear the website toward prospective and current students, the content needs to be

more nuanced for their needs, as students are still exploring their academic

aspirations.

Users were surprised that most of the external links took them to the UCLAhomepage.

Participants would have been more satisfied if the links took them to a specificUCLA page or intranet, rather than the homepage. They felt stranded when they

were led to such a general part of the school website.

They were frustrated that the external link within each Optimist profile did notdirectly answer the question posited.

Recommendation: Make available external links to specific websites ofdepartments which Optimists studied or worked under. For example, Francis

Ford Coppola received his MFA from the School of Theater, Film, and

Television (TFT). His How will you change peoples views? button should

directly link the user to the TFT domain.

Since the site is primarily aimed at donors, Optimists should link directly to UCLAs

donate page.

When we asked if users would mind a donate button on the site, they said no. When we asked if users preferred the term donate or give, most said they

preferred give.

Users also preferred having a link directly to the donate page rather than theUCLA homepage.

Alumni were particularly vocal as to the lack of a donate button. Recommendation: Continue using unique copy for every person but make the

sites intent to gather donors more apparent. A phrase such as, What will you

give? seems fairly intuitive for a link label.

5.3. Website StructureThe layout of the Optimists webpage should be improved.


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Improve the layout of Optimists on the home page. Participants mentioned there is too much negative space at the bottom of the

Optimists site homepage. They suggest that users might have the impression that

site is still under construction or the site has not been completely loaded into the

browser. Recommendation: Some of the interviewees suggested that multi-layered

navigation system should be used to make multiple classification on those

optimists. The Optimists profile pages should be classified and be organized by

their department, field, or status as student, alumnus, donor. It is necessary to

have a classification system as the number of Optimists gets larger.

Make the links clearer and the cursors more responsive

Some interviewers are confused with the UCLA and Optimists logos in themiddle top of the page. Users might misunderstand the two logos as anintegrated one. The UCLA logo should be more obviously separated from the

Optimists logo, and should stand out as a link to the UCLA homepage.

Make use of the negative space at the sides of the page

The negative space is very obvious and much larger when running on biggerscreens such as on iMac computers. The content in the middle of the screen

should be widened, or the website should be more responsive to different screen

sizes.

5.4. More mixed mediaUsers expressed interest in more mixed media, rather than just information in

paragraph format. They also thought that the media being used is sometimes

confusing.

Users were confused by the Radio option at the top of the page, and mostthought the link would take them to some sort of UCLA radio station.

Instead of having long paragraphs about the Optimists, could include individualvideos, such as interviews, or even a combination of these formats. This might

include very specific Optimists videos in the same form as the Optimist tv spot.

Recommendation: Add mixed media in the form of audio and video, this wouldmake the Optimists page more engaging and interactive.


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Appendix I: Optimists Focus group agenda and questions

March 2013

Browsing behavior:

-Do you have a favorite website? Or what websites do you visit the most? If so, what

do you like about them?

-Do you remember a specific college or educational website that you liked? What did

you like or dislike about it?

Show Optimist Video (from webpage carousel panel - Jackie Robinson image) and

other media

(Pass around magazine and poster ads.

Give them few moments to think and commence questions.)

-Would you be likely to want to look at this website after seeing the video you just

saw?

-What about after seeing marketing from print media?

Impressions of the website:

-Do you like the website? Is there something that stands out about it?

-Whats your impression of the carousel, the revolving panel of images and text? This

is good, added it.

-What do you think the goal of this website is?

-Would the website entice you more to come to UCLA? (for prospectives!)

-Would this entice you to donate financially? (for alums)

-Or support UCLA in other ways? (for current students + alums)

Navigation to UCLA main site:.

From the Optimists homepage try and find your way to UCLAs main website.


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-Was it easy to get there?

-How long did it take?

-What ways would you improve the path to get from the Optimists site to the UCLA

one?

Navigation around the tiles:

(Direct users to click on a tile...)

-Of the tiles, which person did you click on? Why?

-Was the information interesting?

-Would you want more info? Less? Same?

(Navigating within a persons profile, try to find your way back to the UCLA home

page. Do NOT click on the UCLA logo at the top, create a new browser, or Google

UCLA.)

-Was it easy? How long did it take?

-What do you think of this method used to direct you to the main UCLA site?

Free navigation between tiles to look at different Optimists:

(Direct users to free play for a few minutes with the tiles, then back on the main

page.)

-Other than being Optimists and former UCLA students, what else do these people

have in common with each other?

-What do you think about these particular optimists, can you relate to them?

-Does this fit with your definition of an interactive website?

Anymore suggestions for website not included on here?

UCLA Optimists Report

Documents

Transcript of UCLA Optimists Report