03
RIT Degree Tracker
This case study highlights the importance of user-centered design
in improving the website's effectiveness and usability, by simplifying the site's structure after addressing the pain points of users and optimizing it for mobile devices.
Role:
UI/UX Designer
Industry:
Learning Management
Duration:
4 months
Problem Statement
RIT students struggle to monitor their degree progress in the Student Information System (SIS), making the the process cumbersome, confusing, and time-consuming.
Current UI of SIS
Mobile version
Desktop version
What do users struggle with?
Problem 1:
Difficulty registering classes
Problem 2:
Complexity in viewing course requirements
Problem 3:
Lack of visualizations
Proposed Solution
Design & develop an interactive dashboard for straightforward degree progress monitoring.
Visualize the information in an intuitive format for easy comprehension after extracting data from student records for past courses, credits, grades, current enrollments, and future requirements.
Highlight key milestones and provide timely alerts.
Show progress to track degree and offer elective course suggestions for future requirements.
Research
Our team interviewed 10 participants over 2 weeks to evaluate the need for an improved SIS. We documented and analyzed their responses, created charts, and developed an affinity diagram in Miro.
This process helped us understand users' experiences and pain points with the current SIS and gather their feedback. By examining their grievances and suggestions, we gained valuable insights to inform the design of a new interface.
Participant Profiles
10
full-time RIT students
User Interviews
10
15 minute interviews
Contextual Inquiries
5
studies over 2 weeks
Summary of Interview Findings
Affinity Diagram
Personas
Lo-Fi Prototype
Hi-Fi Prototype
User Testing
1. Think aloud protocol 💭
2. Scenarios & task completion, post-task questionnaire
3. Mobile evaluation and questions
4. Post test questionnaire, debrief and follow up questions
Task List
1. Find the credits or classes needed to graduate
2. Find your GPA
3. Find current course details
4. Post test questionnaire, debrief and follow up question
Measurements
User preference, Time on task and Mouse clicks
Post-test research inquiries
Is the presented degree tracking interface quicker and easier to use compared to the previous SIS interface?
Is the presented degree tracking interface preferred by the users compared to the previous SIS interface?
Results
Video Walkthrough
Task Completion & Performance
Our team interviewed 5 graduate students from RIT and had them complete three different scenarios in out prototype design and our current SIS system.
The tasks encompassed questions like
Checking the student's GPA,
Identifying the number of remaining courses, and
Reviewing course schedules
After completing the tasks on the current SIS website and prototype, we had our participants take a post questionnaire. In the questionnaire, we asked them to rate the importance of the tasks they completed in the session.
3 of them viewed seeing how many courses they had left as very important and 2 of them viewing that task as important.
In regards to finding a student's GPA, 1 user found that task very important, 2 users found it important, while the other 2 users found it neutral and not important.
Conclusions, Limitations & Further Research
Our prototype was unanimously preferred over the old SIS and scored much higher on the SUS evaluation. Limitations were the small sample size of only RIT graduate students, which may bias results towards the familiar SIS system. Further iterations incorporating user feedback are recommended before development, along with expanding testing to more diverse users beyond RIT undergrads and grads.
References
Affairs, A. S. for P. (2013, September 6). System usability scale (SUS). Usability.gov. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from
