JRMC7013: UGA-bility Usability Testing Case Study

A user-centered evaluation of the UGA website, analyzing real user navigation patterns and identifying opportunities to improve ease, organization, and overall usability.

Project Date: Fall 2025

Role: Usability Test Moderator & UX Researcher

Project Overview: The UGA-bility project is a structured usability test designed to evaluate how effectively users navigate and understand the UGA website. For this assignment, I conducted a moderated usability test session with a participant who represents a realistic user of the site. Using guided tasks, observational notes, product reaction cards, and the System Usability Scale, I collected data that revealed several opportunities to improve clarity, navigation, and overall user experience.

University of Georgia Website

The Problem: As a frequently visited university website, UGA must serve multiple audiences, from prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, parents, to community members. Because of this wide scope, the site can become overwhelming or unintuitive for users who are trying to locate specific information quickly. Many users rely on predictable navigation patterns, logical grouping of content, and clear interfaces to complete simple tasks efficiently.

This usability test was conducted to understand how a real user, with no guidance or prior preparation, navigates the site and where pain points emerge. The goal was to evaluate whether core tasks could be completed easily, and to identify patterns of confusion or inefficiency that could inform future improvements.

The Solution: To evaluate the usability of the UGA website, I conducted a moderated Zoom-based testing session following a standardized script. After obtaining consent and explaining the purpose of the session, I asked the user to think aloud throughout the process. This method helped capture the participant’s real-time thought process, confusions, and intuitive expectations while interacting with the website.

Testing Script & Pre-Test Questions

The session began with pre-test questions to understand the participant’s background, typical internet use, and familiarity with UGA. Then, I asked the participant to navigate the homepage without clicking anything, simply sharing initial impressions. This allowed me to gather early observations about visual hierarchy, intended audience, and first-glance usability.

UGA website homepage and participant thoughts

Next, the participant completed a series of seven structured tasks. These tasks reflected realistic goals for different types of users such as finding the Pet Health Center, locating the Academic Calendar, navigating to ticket information, and identifying program details or application fees. Throughout, the participant verbalized her decisions, confusions, and assumptions, which revealed several deeper usability issues. For example, she frequently expected items to appear under certain tabs such as the Academic Calendar under “Current Students,” but instead found them buried elsewhere or only visible after heavy scrolling.

I recorded success or failure for each task, captured time-on-task for selected scenarios, and documented direct quotes and behavioral observations. Some tasks were completed smoothly, while others involved unnecessary detours caused by inconsistent menu structure, misleading dropdown indicators, or visually crowded sections. This process uncovered specific patterns in user behavior and highlighted where the website’s information architecture does not match user expectations.

After the task portion, I used Microsoft’s Product Reaction Cards to understand the participant’s emotional and qualitative impressions of the site. Her selections — appealing, business-like, responsive, hard to use, and comprehensive — provided valuable insight into both strengths and weaknesses of the experience.

Finally, the participant completed the System Usability Scale (SUS), resulting in a score of 50/100, indicating below-average usability and confirming the challenges observed throughout the session.

System Usability Scale Results

Through this methodical testing process, I was able to surface specific usability challenges related to navigation, layout consistency, and clarity of information, all of which impact how effectively users can engage with the UGA website.

Results: The usability test revealed three primary issues: unintuitive navigation, inconsistent layout patterns, and visually crowded pages that slowed task completion. Despite successfully completing most tasks, the participant often took longer routes or explored incorrect sections first, showing that the site’s information architecture does not always match user expectations.

The participant’s Product Reaction Card selections and System Usability Scale score further validated these findings, indicating that while the site is appealing and comprehensive, it can also be confusing and difficult to navigate. A key lesson from this test was the importance of clear menu structures and predictable grouping of content, especially on sites with multiple audience segments.

In future iterations, I recommend additional user testing across different devices, more extensive accessibility evaluations, and click-tracking studies to identify areas where important information is being overlooked. Expanding this study to include more diverse participants would also help surface patterns across different user groups and ensure the website effectively serves all audiences.