With the Creative Brief complete, LMD is working on site architecture revisions. Here are the findings of the survey:
TOP-LINE RESEARCH FINDINGS
Public’s Perception of UMSON
Based on the interviews conducted and responses from an online questionnaire, UMSON is perceived as a solid institution among alumni, faculty/staff, and current students. Adjectives such as prestigious, challenging, forward-thinking, and inspiring were utilized to describe the school.
Although most comments were positive, a common reference to some shortcomings came to surface, particularly from the current student group.
Survey participants were asked to verbalize what they believed to be UMSON strengths. Common comments across all groups were related to excellence in education at an affordable price as well as the prestigious faculty and leadership. Valuable research opportunities also were listed as an important characteristic of the school. The fact that UMSON is ranked among the top 10 schools in the country adds an immense level of credibility and pride to be associated with UMSON across all groups.
When participants were asked to mention unique attributes about the school in comparison to other schools of nursing, national ranking, prestigious faculty, geographical location, variety of academic programs, research opportunities, and affordability were the common themes among all participants.
Public’s Perception of Current UMSON Website
Participants were asked to rate the current UMSON website on quality and organization of the information, visual design, and overall usability on a scale of 1-3, with one being excellence and 3 being poor. The average score among ~133 participants was a 2; however, the most improvement was required on the areas of usability, content organization, and visual design. Some comments from the survey include:
- "A single calendar that let us know what is happening in the SON and around the campus."
- "There are so many items in the drop-down menus. Should be fewer."
- "Reorganize links, improve the ease of navigation."
- "Update information and check accuracy. It is hard to find needed information."
- "Separate intranet and logins for student and faculty users as distinct from public."
- "Definitely highlight school ranking."
- "Add streaming videos/clips of commentaries about the strength of the programs by successful alumni in various leadership positions across the country/world in various specialties of nursing."
- "Make sure the search feature is very robust to cover all of the specialties that the school offers."
About the New Site
Survey participants visit the UMSON site an average of three to four times per week, mainly to access the Blackboard application, share drives, access the faculty and staff directory, and to keep up with relevant school news. A number of students express concern with regard to timely postings.
Participants express interest in having a highly interactive website to help improve overall communication. A few examples include adding online course listings, a centralized calendar of events, improved site search capability, links to commonly used application such as Blackboard, and SURF on the home page to facilitate access.
In addition, participants express the need for a better site architecture in order to decrease repetitiveness of information as well as facilitate site navigation. The implementation of photographs conveying the school dynamics is very important. A few examples included photos of student in clinical and academic settings, shots portraying student life on campus, and faculty student interaction. Other items such as student blogs, streaming video, and social networking were mentioned as tools that could improve communication across campus as well as connect current students and alumni with school initiatives.
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