WEBSITE CONTENT ANALYSIS CASE STUDY

BARD GRADUATE CENTER

Content anaylsis and website re-design project for a graduate research institute. 

OVERVIEW

Bard Graduate Center is a graduate research institute in New York City offering MA and PhD degree programs, exhibitions, research initiatives, and public programs to explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture. 

In 2015, the institution began the process to redesign their website, and worked with the design studio, Projects Projects, and development team, Systemantics, to design the site and build a content management system. In 2016, I oversaw the management of the content migration. The new site was launched in February 2017. 

ROLE
Web Manager
Content Migration, Web Development, Usability Testing, Sitemap, Wireframing, Sketching, User Flows, Content Strategy, Project Management, Google Analytics

TIMELINE
2016–2021

IDENTIFY + GOALS

During the content migration process, there were a substantial amount of content to organize including pages, research articles, videos, landing pages, and related content. Our goal is to ensure the content is current and compelling for site visitors. I worked with departments across the institution to systematically organize, categorize, and reassess the content for the new site. New taxonomies had to be created to tag and sort research article pages, as well as creating new content to better showcase new project initiatives. 

TIMELINE

For the first round of the content analysis, we introduced user testing and user experience research methods to the process. The project started in 2018 and it took approximately 2.5 months to complete. This project is on-going, and we continue to evaluate and re-organze content for the website. 

RESEARCH 

Goals and objectives for each section of the site needed to be defined. I began the process by interviewing and listening to each department's needs, and created questions that could help guide us through the process. 

The following are some of the initial questions to determine the goals for each section of the site:
1. Are visitors engaging with the content and discovering resources on our site?
2. What kinds of contents are attracting visitors to the section?
3. How are visitors finding content on our site?

To view the interview questions process more in depth, please see pdf. 

ANALYTICS

We looked closely at behavioral metrics from Google Analytics. The quantitative data helped provide some clarity on areas for improvement. We also looked at the visitor flow and see how they are discovering content on our site. 

We discovered that:
- Number of site visitors varies depending on when the semester begins and ends.
- Majority of visitor engagement happens during the semester, as well as event and exhibition announcements.
- Traffic slows during the summer time but visitors still continue to visit the Events and Exhibition pages at a median pace.
- Spikes occurs during open enrollment and beginning of semesters as prosepective candidates and students visit the site for information. 

In the past year, I worked with the MA and PhD department to clarify the content so it's more efficient for students to find. 

The Research Forum department is another section that needed a deep review. It hosts a lot of rich content on the website but a lot of the information is not easily discoverable. More examples of the content analysis process for this department will be presented in the next segments. 

USER TESTING

Once goals and objectives were established, I conducted the first round of user tests. We hired an online user testing service to help recruit people, and it provided an online platform that can easily generate tests as well as video documentation for each person. I created a set of questions to test some of our goals. Each person had to complete a task in order to move to the next question. Below is a simulation of the process. After each test, I would review the videos and observe the actions taken, then provide a summary report.

For the testers, we specifically selected people that had some relevant knowledge or experience with design and art institutions.

For the Research Forum, the following goals and questions were tested:

Goals for Website
For audiences to discover and engage with Research Forum features, REvisions, Object of the Month, and projects.
Utilize this section as information and research resource.

User Test Questions
Scenario:
You are a visitor to the site and would like to find out information on the types of research and projects at Bard Graduate Center.

1. What is the Research Forum?
2. Navigate to Series page. What kinds of content is in Series?
3. What kinds of Projects are happening at Bard Graduate Center?
4. What kinds of Fellowships are offered at Bard Graduate Center?
5.  Where can you find information about the Digital Media Lab?
6.  Navigate to the Archive page. What kinds of content are in the Archive?
7.  In the Archive, what is BGCTV?

Mapping out the task flow to complete for each person participating in the user test. 

USER TEST SUMMARY FOR RESEARCH FORUM 

The consensus from people is that the majority of the site is well organized, and easy to navigate to find information. They liked the vast amounts of information presented, and that there is a lot to learn and explore. The Series and Fellowships pages were the most clear and straightforward for the users to understand and navigate.

Report Summary

Majority of the people had some issues with searching the Archive page. Suggestions to add a search bar for more efficiency. Majority liked the drop down filters, and found it useful. But they did find the “Sort by Title” and “Sort by Date” section confusing to use. They either want to see it separated, or organized more clearly. They also suggest to create separate categories for articles and videos. Majority did like how there is livestream content in the Research Forum.

USER JOURNEY MAPPING

To visualize the experience from a visitor's perspective, I created a user journey map to illustrate potential scenarios on how the visitor would search for content on the Archive page, their expectations, and to find areas where the design needs improvement. This is our first attempt at creating a user journey map because assumptions have been generally discussed internally and with stakeholders, but not defined from the visitors perspective.

ANALYSIS + SITE MAPPING + WIREFRAMING

The departments and I met again to review the summary report and the website content. We worked on identifying the issues, and strategized how it can be improved. Some of the content were easily updated on the website, but other content needed a deeper analysis on how best to organize it.

The Research Forum department of the institution hosts the most content on the website including scholar essays, project initiatives, and archive of video livestreams for talk events. To view the breadth of content, I created a sitemap to illustrate how it is organized, and also to help identify where content overlaps.

WIREFRAMES

For the Research Forum, we started with the Archive page. Our initial assumption was that it's difficult to search for essays and materials, and the organization of categories needed improvement. Our assumptions were proved correct from the user tests as majority of the participants found it confusing to search for items. 

We identified two possible solutions to fix the content and video organization issues. I created mock-ups to illustrate what those revisions could look like. 

Solution for All Contents:
- Clearly display the main contents in this section so it's easier to filter: Series, Articles, Videos.
- Remove the drop down filters that are on page. Currently the filters are confusing to use as the categories are not an accurate description of the contents. 

Solution for Video Content:
- Organize video collection by year. When visitor clicks
on a collection year, it goes to a page with video
events from that year.

OUTCOME + REFLECTION

A new website working group was formed in 2019 to specifically work on content strategy and build. The MA/PhD section of the site was re-organized to make the content more clear and easily discoverable for students who rely on it for resources. The Gallery landing page's design was re-formatted so that information is presented more clearly, and to better help visitors find exhibition announcements. The Research Forum section was re-formatted to better reflect the purpose and research at the insitution, as well as re-categorize project initiatives so site visitors can discover it more easily.  

On-going work is in progress, and we continue to improve upon content organization and visitor engagement. I learned from this project the importance of interviews, observations, user testing, and analytics to guide content analysis and strategy for websites. This project has given me the opportunity to further study UX research methods, and in the process I discovered a new excitement for UX experience tools. I also started taking courses and earning certifications at the Interaction Design Foundation to further my interest in this field, and improve my skill sets in design, web development, and content analysis.