Staff, faculty, and students evaluate ESUP’s web presence

Reaching new audiences

If you’re reading the ESUP blog, then you probably have some idea about the impact the upgrade will have on your work. But there are thousands in the University community who have a lot of catching up to do. As we approach April 2015* (when the upgraded systems plan to “Go Live”), ESUP’s Communication Team reached out to “unaware audiences” to figure out the best way to get them up-to-speed.

Usability Services

The Team leveraged the expertise of user experience analyst Nick Rosencrans to evaluate ESUP's online presence. As a member of IT Training and Usability Services, Nick discussed the basics of content strategy and facilitated an evaluation of the website and blog in the University's usability lab. By conducting usability tests with faculty, staff, and students who were mostly unaware of ESUP activities, we gained insight into how these members of the University community find information, how existing content resonates with them, and how they view the potential impact of the systems upgrade.

Santiago Fernández-Giménez(bottom) and Nick Rosencrans(top)
observe participants from behind double-sided glass

Findings

Overall, evaluators were able to find information explaining how and why the University is updating its systems. Most users seemed to agree the content explains why the upgrade is a positive and necessary step, but the Team also heard feedback on areas needing attention:

• Most users wanted to know what is changing, when, and how it will affect them. An abundance of information and insider jargon seemed to obscure the most important points that answered their queries.  

• Evaluators did not anticipate much, if any, interruption to their daily work, despite language indicating systems will be down for several days during Go Live.  

• Our audiences self identified with their role(s) as faculty, staff, or student (example: a staff member who is also taking classes) and sought information according to these roles, rather than how ESUP is organized as work streams or differentiated by the systems (Student, HRMS, Finance, etc.).  

• Participants wanted to know the people behind ESUP. They wanted to understand where to direct their inquiries and have confidence that their concerns would be routed to the correct person.

Tricia Conway(left) and Carrie Meyer(right)

record observations in the Usability Lab

Looking forward

Time with Usability Services provided valuable direction for how to provide detailed information to the community. In the coming months, the Communications Team will adjust strategies and messages to address areas of confusion. To learn more about the upgrade, please contact esup@umn.edu.

*This article was updated on 02/04/2015 to reflect the most recent timing information.

Portal leadership team retreat

Members of the Portal Leadership Team gathered on August 19, 2013, in Folwell Hall for a half-day retreat to launch a content governance process and to energize the team for the release of the rough draft this fall.

What’s content governance? The risk of launching this type of portal is that it can become a free-for-all -- with lots of messy, disorganized content. The Portal Leadership Team is seeking to establish a governance structure that ensures a unified and meaningful experience for the U.

The Team watches a demonstration of the Portal rough draft.

Some of the questions posed to the leadership team were examples of the issues that need to be solved ahead of time, such as:

• What are the criteria for deciding what constitutes an alarm versus a notification?  Who decides what meets each criteria set?  
• Who decides what the attributes will be?  Who gets to use which attributes when they create content?
• Which content appears on the home page? Which content appears in fixed/immovable positions?

The visual agenda for the retreat.

In a consensus workshop, the team tackled the question: “What does the content governance group need to understand and commit to in order to be able to set up the rules and processes around which content will be governed for launch and in the first year?” The team worked on developing the principles from which to make the governance decisions, including a focus on end users, collaboration, responsiveness and flexibility.

The team also saw an early demonstration of the rough draft of the portal, which will be released on September 16. Feedback on the work done so far was very positive. "I was encouraged and excited by the demonstration and the retreat itself," said team member Carrie Meyer. "It's reassuring to know that a broadly representative group is working on the Portal governance model proposal, including great people from each campus in the system."

Leadership and Project team members from each campus attended the retreat: 

• Amber Bailey (University Relations, UMC) 
• Andrea Wilson (Human Resources, UMR)
• Ann Freeman (University Relations, UMTC)
• Ben Cashen (Information Technology/Analytics and Reporting, UMTC)
• Carla Boyd (Office of the Registrar, UMD)
• Carrie Meyer (Enterprise Financial System, UMTC)
• Cynthia Murdoch (ESUP Portal Project, UMTC)
• Julie Selander (Chair of Portal Leadership Team; Academic Support Resources, UMTC)
• Kelly Krattiger (Office of Human Resources, UMTC)
• Kim Doberstein (ESUP Portal Project, UMTC)
• LeeAnn Melin (Office of Undergraduate Education, UMTC)
• Mike Vandenberg (Office of Admissions, UMM)
• Sandra Ecklein (myU, UMTC)
• Scott Barnard (Organizational Effectiveness, UMTC)
• Susan Geller (ESUP Portal Project, UMTC)

For more on the portal visit z.umn.edu/portal.