UGA-bility Testing Project

User testing the University of Georgia website

Project Overview

The UGA-bility testing project, conducted in the Fall 2025 semester for my Emerging Media Strategy (JRMC7013) course, served two purposes. To conduct an in-depth user test on the University of Georgia website to identify UX/UI problems and potential improvements, and to provide an example and serve as practice for the kind of testing we will have to conduct on our own Capstone websites in the Spring 2026 semester.

With information-gathering usability questions, a list of task scenarios, and the use of the System Usability Scale developed by John Brooke and Microsoft’s Product Reaction Cards, this project introduced us to all the tools and components needed to conduct an in-depth usability test that returns meaningful and implementable UX/UI improvements.

The Problem

All university stakeholders, including current and prospective students, faculty and staff, and alumni, must interact with the Universty of Georgia website at some point throughout their journey with the institution. With so many different stakeholders being served by just one website, uga.edu must serve many roles at once. The website is a marketing tool to attract the next generation; an information resource for students, faculty, and staff; and an outlet for alumni and fans to remain engaged with the university after graduation.

It is difficult to create a single website that can serve many different populations while providing the best, most enjoyable, and most streamlined user experience. With this project I set out to get a better understanding of how well the University of Georgia website is accomplishing its goals and serving its many consituent populations.

The Solution

The best way to find out how users are interacting with a website is by conducting a user test. Through the UGA-bility project I had to identify one real-world stakeholder, and measure her experience with the site by asking a series of questions and having her accomplish a variety of tasks. I conducted my test with a prospective graduate student and began with a series of usability questions, included below.

After briefing the test subject on the details of the test, and gathering this initial information, we dove into the task scenarios. Task scenarios like, “You’re planning for the Spring semester and want to know when classes start. What’s the first day of classes for Spring 2024?” and “You’re a huge fan of the Georgia Bulldogs, and would love to get tickets for an upcoming sports event. Navigate to the Ticket Information Request Form,” were designed by the professor to simulate the experience of users from different affinity groups.

The final task, “Yay, you’ve graduated and now you are an alum! You decide to make a gift of an annual donation to UGA. Find the link to pay by credit card,” simulated the experience of an alum. Through the UGA-bility testing project, I found that this was by far the easiest and quickest task for the user to accomplish.

With each task scenario I recorded whether the test subject passed or failed, how long it took her to accomplish the task, and any interesting observations I had or useful quotes she said throughout the process. I concluded the user test by conducting the System Usability Scale and Product Reaction Cards with the test subject.

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a survey designed by John Brooke at Digital Equipment Corporation. It is designed to be a quick yet effective way to evaluate a product’s ease of use. The SUS consists of 10 statements which test subjects then rank on a one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree) scale. Statements include, “I think I would like to use this product frequently,” and “I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this product.” The results of the SUS I conducted with my test subject revealed that the university’s website had much room for improvement in ease of use.

Another tool I used to better understand the test subject’s experience with the website was the Product Reaction Cards, developed by Microsoft Corporation. This list of 118 words and phrases (included below) is used to gauge “desirability” when it comes to a user’s experience with a product.

The test subject from my user test selected “business-like,” “fast,” “personal,” “stimulating,” and “gets in the way” to describe the University of Georgia website.

Results

While I was able to identify UX/UI issues through the UGA-bility testing project, the most valuable lesson I gained from the assignment was just how to conduct these in-depth user tests and how they can be valuable tools for improving products. As previously stated, myself and the rest of the team I am working with on a Capstone project will be tasked with conducting very similar user tests on our own product in the Spring 2026 semester.

This assignment gave valuable insight into the process of designing and executing such a test. What potential user errors do we foresee and how do we design task scenarios to test for them? What usability questions should we ask to determine a user’s level of familiarity or relevance to our product? What post-survey questions should we ask and what information do we want those questions to reveal? These are all questions that have been made easier through this experience, let alone the practical experience of guiding a test subject through this lengthy process and encouraging them to provide useful feedback and insights.