From January – April 2012, I worked with a team to conduct a user experience study on iMpact, the student intranet for UM Ross School of Business. iMpact houses all career resources for students, and is vital for job and internship-hunting.
Our team created an interaction map and conducted user interviews and surveys. Our research helped us determine that students are excited about content but struggle with site functions because of complicated, often overlapping navigational functions.
User testing revealed that older students developed workarounds to avoid troublesome functions and eventually learned to use the site. New students were immediately lost in the site, and quickly abandoned tasks if they had no vested interest.
Recommendations focused largely on changes in menu navigation and removal of repetitive elements, as Ross staff expressed that altering the weak search function would be outside their budget.
Good UX makes things better 