Client and Audience Analysis · Client & Audience Analysis _____ Katie Maxwell Team 3: Career...
Transcript of Client and Audience Analysis · Client & Audience Analysis _____ Katie Maxwell Team 3: Career...
1
Client & Audience Analysis ______________________________
Katie Maxwell Team 3: Career Center – Employers
2
CClliieenntt AAnnaallyyssiiss General Information
The focus of this course is the re‐creation of Florida State University Career Center’s website. The URL is: http://career.fsu.edu/. The website has already been created, but one of the issues is that there are some pitfalls of the website. In order to continue offering its services a redesign has been put in to effect. Team 3’s task at hand is specifically redesigning the Employers’ section of the website. The Career Center offers a vast amount of services to students, alumni, faculty, staff, employers, and the community. The main services are towards students and employers. The website features services for students such as choosing a major, exploring career choices, obtaining experience, documenting their skills, and finding a job. As for the Employers, the website features Employers Login, posting jobs and internships, and participating in campus career expos and career day. There appears to be vast amounts of information for both the students and employers sections but not enough clarity of the information which can confuse the user and deter them from using the site altogether. Team 3’s mission for this semester is to recreate a more user‐friendly design to better represent the services the Career Center has to offer to its diverse audience. Our team’s primary contact is Myrna Hoover. She is the Program Director of Employers Relations and Recruitment Services. She can be reached at 850‐644‐6089 and her email address is [email protected]. Other Career Center contacts are Tex Hudgens who is the Systems Coordinator. He deals with website maintenance, updating, and technical issues. Mr. Hudgens can be reached at 850‐644‐3085 and his email address is [email protected]. Emily Kennelly, the Assistant Director of Career Experience Opportunities can be reached at 850‐644‐9776 and her email address is [email protected]. Natalie Kates is the Promotions and Publications Coordinator for the Career Center and she deals with making the website marketable to its users and update with campus current events. She can be reached at 850‐644‐6434 and her email address is [email protected]. Natalie Jean, the Librarian, is in charge of information delivery and accessibility of Career Center information. She can be reached at 850‐644‐9779 and her email address is [email protected]. Janet Lenz is the Program Director for Instruction, Research, and Evaluation of the Career Center. She can be reached at 850‐644‐9547. Janet Lenz has the final approval on all projects such as the website redesign. Although she has final say every member of the staff at the Career Center is involved in the decision making.
By the end of this semester the Florida State University Career Center will receive a paper prototype of the site redesign. The actually coding, formatting, and implementation will be authored by the Information Architecture students in the spring of 2012. Launched date cannot be determined because there could be some major set backs next semester that could hinder the launching of the new website. Along with the paper prototype, Team 3 will present their findings, submit a site map, and annotated wireframe by the end of this semester. This information will assist those Information Architecture students next semester.
3
Budget is currently not be evaluated in the stages of redesign. There will be no intended costs to harbor redesign for the Career Center’s website. Rest assured there will be brainstorming, designing, analyzing, and researching in order to create a reorganized website. The activities may not cost money budget wise but it will definitely cost a lot of time and hard work from the students in Information Architecture Fall 2011. Current Site and Content The Career Center’s website is designed with a basic homepage that highlights on the left side of the screen how to get started which is more of who are you? student, employers, alumni. It also lists the Career Center’s services and below that its resources. On the top center of the screen there is a flash slideshow of advertised events happening on campus. Underneath that is a listing of events and news with other links to click on such as Viewing All Upcoming Events, More Career Center News, and the Employers Newsletter. On the far right side panel there is a list of Career Center Tools: Career Portfolio, ProfessioNole, Employers Login, SeminoleLink, and Find A Part Time Job. Below the tools is a login to SeminoleLink and further below that is featured partners with the Career Center. This is a description of the homepage which will also be redesigned this semester along with the employers section of the website.
4
A similar layout of information is seen when clicked on Employers. Currently, the Career Center organizes the Employers section into Recruit talent, Plan your travel, Increase your visibility at FSU, Partner with the Career Center, and Access statistics on FSU students. When clicked on, two distinguished columns of Career Center Services and Resources appear in the center of the screen. The site was last updated in November of 2010 last year. What was mainly updated was format changes not organizational changes. The initial design of the Career Center’s Website was outsourced. Tex Hudgens does maintenance and technical support for the website. Each section of the Career Center such as Students, Employers, Alumni, etc are updated by staff assigned to those sections. There is no one group that goes in and updates the site. After interviewing the clients, they felt as though there aren’t a lot of successes with the site. Unfortunately, there are more obstacles to overcome than successes to recognize with the website. The clients believe that some of the shortcomings of the Career Center website are as follows: poor navigation, too much information, main tasks for the Employers are not clearly exemplified on the website. The clients have not conducted any usability test or gathered visitor feedback on the current Career Center website. Team 3 plans to create a survey and issue it to the listing of the Employers on the website and analyze the results and present the records to the Career Center keep as their own. As a university, it is important to uphold and maintain the current look and feel of the website. As noted in one of the client interviews they have a standard to preserve Florida State Branding Policy along with their templates and style sheets which is already in effect. Team 3’s goal is not to create a new look and feel entirely but rearrange information and cater the employers section to its actual users.
5
Access to content on the current website is available upon request if we wanted to incorporate into our prototype. Most likely if there is any additional content that would like to be added to the prototype it will be created in house by careen center staff. The Career Center understands that our goal for this semester is not to do a complete renovation of the website but more of a remodeling of the information. Obviously, certain visual elements and content should be included in the prototype that the current website uses such as the Florida State logo and the color scheme. We are redesigning the navigation system and naming conventions of the website. Displayed below, is a basic content outline of the current structure of the Career Center website and what we would like to incorporate in our prototype.
6
Competitor Sites Benchmark Analysis #1 – www.crc.ufl.edu The first benchmark analysis is University of Florida’s Career Center website. It offers clear information on how to connect and market your organization in a series of 3 levels of involvement (basic, standard, advanced). I really appreciate the layout of the website. It stands out from other websites with its friendly and simple design. The employers’ webpage lists and describes all the services that an employers can get involved in and how. When clicked on one of their services it takes you to entirely new webpage and underlines the basics of the service. I enjoy the separation of web pages and they all have the same look and feel. There wasn’t that much that I disliked about the website. It clearly hits all the high points that employers are looking for. Other than the fact that it’s Florida State University’s revival, the website is hands
7
down a great example to mirror. What I would want to take from this to use in our prototype would be the simplicity of information and the listing of services to employers. I think that would help
Screenshot of benchmark analysis #1 Benchmark Analysis #2 ‐ http://careers.unc.edu/employers The second benchmark analysis is University of North Carolina’s Career Center website. What I like most about this website is how they have a list related items on the left and right sides of the page. They have related tools and relevant handouts on the right side where you can use the employer login or download a PDF format of directions to campus, parking information, and even a employer brochure. However, what I dislike about the website is that when clicked on related items on the left the next webpage its not inviting to read. There are paragraphs and paragraphs of information to read which could deter the user from further using the website. What I would like to incorporate into our prototype would be the side panels of information. I believe that it helps navigate through the information better and make the webpage look full and inviting. It is also easier to see the next available thing to click on which gives the users a better understanding of their options.
8
Screenshot of benchmark analysis #2 Benchmark Analysis #3 ‐ http://www.stthomas.edu/careerdevelopment/employers/ The third benchmark analysis is St. Thomas University’s Career Center website. What I like about this website is it shows the overall navigation on the left hand side and the sub topics underneath Employer Relations. Each sub topic when clicked on is formatted in a way that is pleasing to read and the information is beneficial. It also lists Employer Quick Links on the right hand side that are intriguing to read to find out more information. What I dislike about this website is it was hard to find out where the employer login was located. Employer login is a very important part when dealing with our Career Center. What I like to see incorporated in our prototype would be employer quick links on the right side panel. This is a side information bar but it could really add to the overall appeal to the website.
9
Screenshot of benchmark analysis #3
Reasons for Re‐Design Our client’s main reason for site redesign is to improve the organization of the website and how employers, for instance, navigate the site and conduct every day tasks. In one of our client meetings, Myrna Hoover talked about how currently the Career Center’s website is much like a teaching website where we should you how to certain tasks. Websites services should be like that. The new website should answer questions quickly, promote our services, and connect the users to the correct contact representative. Redesigning the website’s information to cater to the employers’ needs also allows the Career Center to connect better with organizations and really serve both the employers and student with finding jobs and internships. Their primary objectives for employers is to have a site that communicates clearly to the employers where the login is and how to post jobs and internships so in the end they have fewer customer service calls about navigating the website. Secondary objectives are to not have a website that is information intensive. Currently, there is an endless supply of information listed but realistically employers don’t have the time to sift through a sea of information—information overload. The clients want to steer clear of information overload and
10
reorganize the site that is plain and simple. As noted by the clients, they want the website to have a sleeker, cleaner design. Measuring success in this particular situation will be either through a series of employer interviews and/or surveys of the current site and after the site redesign is completed. Comparing the results before and after site redesign will truly expose a measure of success. There will be no backtracking for there is only forward thinking from here on out. As a team we will take into consideration the client’s goals and also what the user’s goals are and combine them together to make the site usable for employers but at the same time marketable for Florida State University’s Career Center. Client Perception After multiple client interviews I’ve realized that the Career Center wants potential visitors to describe the site as corporate, cutting edge, and innovative. The current website is none of the things described. The website is cluttered with a lot of information to parse through and the design/layout isn’t recognized as cutting edge or innovative. The Career Center is famous for the services it offers and in turn they want their website to mirror the same image. The Career Center at Florida State is well‐known among career services. They offered a wide variety of teaching documents that helps students and employers get connected and learn more about how to either prepare for their future career or market their company on campus. Florida State’s Career Center is more of teachable Career Center. This is what differentiates it from the rest. Technology/Infrastructure The target platforms for the Career Center website are mainly Windows and somewhat Macintosh. The target browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome. Tex Hudgens, the Systems Coordinator, mainly deals with maintenance and technical issues with the website. One of the main issues that users call in for is website navigation. Users are unable to find what they are looking for. This is a huge problem for the success of the Career Center website. There were some technical issues with Flash applications so Systems Coordinator made the swift to Java programming to view certain applications. A lot of the slideshow banners of upcoming events and Career Center sponsors are created in Flash. This makes the website come alive. It draws attention to the information on the banners. This enhances the users’ experience with the website because slideshows are more intriguing to look at than to read text or paragraphs. The Career Center offers Employer Login and SeminoleLink. These are database functionalities of the website. There is an current issue with the login because once the employer logs in the website is transferred to another website that supports the login application and the employer is forced to log in a second time. This is noted as a duplication of logins which is time consuming for the employers.
11
Site Maintenance For each section of the website such as Students, Alumni, Employers the Career Center assigns a certain group of staff to work with that part of the website content. So if something in the employer section needs to be updated is it mainly that specific group’s job to go in and update information. Managing content updates is not done by a single person but a specific group according to which section it is. All site maintenance will be performed by Tex Hudgens, the Systems Coordinator for the Career Center. He is also in charge of handling any certain technical issues with the Career Center website. What will mainly be updated is content. Once the Career Center has the layout and design of the new website all they have to do is fill in the proper information or update it. There should be no need to constantly update the website multiple times a year according to re‐design purposes. Also, depending on the certain information such as current events and news that information does need to be updated weekly or monthly. But information such as how to use the employer login will remain static and will not need to be updated unless otherwise directed. AAuuddiieennccee AAnnaallyyssiiss Primary Site Users The intended primary users of the Career Center website are Employers/Recruiters. A basic demographic is as follows: there is a good balance of female and male employers that come in contact with the Career Center, the age range of the recruiters is mid 20s to mid 30s, the education they possess is a Bachelor’s Degree, and their occupation is a recruiter or representative for a Fortune 500 company. The recruiters work with a lot of the different university career service websites so they are equipped with how to navigate websites and they know what they are looking for. Because most of the recruiters are required to branding/marketing their company they are intermediates to experts with the internet and computer skills. Some tasks that recruiters perform when visiting the Career Center website are logging in to the Employer Login or SeminoleLink, posting a job or internship, on campus recruiting such as interviews or career expos, and accessing the Employer Handbook. Secondary Site Users The secondary users are mainly Human Resource representatives for a company. Their demographics are as follows: there is also a good balance of female and male representatives, they range from late 30’s to mid 40’s, they like the recruiters have a Bachelor’s Degree and work for Fortune 500 companies. Their main tasks when visiting the website are researching student statistics, accessing the Employer Handbook, contacting certain career staff employees.
12
Human Resource representatives are mainly the intermediaries between the Career Center and the recruiters. They research information and review certain documents that are beneficial to reporting to the recruiters. RReesseeaarrcchh PPrroocceessss Methods and Materials Gathered Most of the information included in this client and audience analysis was obtained through multiple client meetings and interviews with the Career Center staff. Since the beginning of the semester, we have scheduled meetings every two weeks with the website task force of the Career Center which enabled our group to acquire the answers to a lot of the questions required for this assignment. Information about similar websites was obtained through three benchmark analyses. The three similar websites were analyzed for content, organization of information, naming conventions, and presentation. Each benchmark analysis and screenshots are included in the section titled “Competitor Sites”. Our group created an Employer survey but unfortunately the results didn’t come in time to be included in this analysis. We asked Employers general information about themselves, their internet settings, and website experience. Once the results are relayed back to us we will be sure to keep this in mind when redesigning the website to better fit the employer’s needs. The main materials gathered for website information was the Employers Handbook. Because the Employers Handbook is highly complimented by Employers we would hope to mirror the presentation and organization on the website. Take for instance the screenshot below that is of the services the Career Center offers to Employers. If we included this as a webpage this would communicate our services easier compared to what is currently on the website. There is a lot of layout design and information we can pull from the Employer Handbook that would be beneficial on the new website.
13
Screenshot of the service page from the Employer Handbook online