Unnovation Creative Brief

The University of Utah’s Conflict of Interest Website

Kara SimpsonKevin Curtis

Lisa HullingerSongYi Han

August 5, 2015

Table of ContentsIntroduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

Executive Summary---------------------------------------------------------------------2

Persona-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5

Scenario------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6

Heuristic Evaluation---------------------------------------------------------------------8

Report of Usability Testing------------------------------------------------------

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Journey Map--------------------------------------------------------------------------------26

Graphical Description of Workflow----------------------------------------

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Web Design Elements---------------------------------------------------------------

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Proposed Design of Computer & Tablet------------------------------28

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Introduction Usability testing reveals that The University of Utah’s Conflict of

Interest (COI) website (http://coi.utah.edu) needs to be redesigned. It is

difficult to use, and several aspects of the site need to be restructured in

order to become more user-friendly. Our purpose is to assist the department

and designers by giving suggestions to strategically design a new layout for

the website.

Executive SummaryProblem Statement

The problem that will specifically be addressed in this proposal is the

training aspect of the website. When users go online to begin the training,

they become incredibly confused, frustrated, and irritated to the point they

don’t want to return to the site again. This is due to the fact that there are

many links that provide training information, but they don’t connect back to

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each other, and it’s unclear where the user needs to go to complete their COI

training. Our team is including a proposal in this brief to fix that problem.

AudienceThe audience for the COI website is faculty members at The University

of Utah. To help the design team better understand the users on their site, a

persona has been created to typify users who are regularly using the site.

Dr. Nathan Jones is the name of the persona. Though his name is

fictitious, the evidence gathered from usability testing is authentic and has

been systematically combined into his profile. Dr. Jones is an environmental

researcher, but he is also a busy husband and a father. He knows he needs

to periodically update his COI, but due to time constraints, he would like to

complete the necessary information as quickly as possible. He is comfortable

with the computer, but he would like a simple program that is

straightforward and easy to understand. He would also like to be able to

track the status of his application and return to it later if he is interrupted

while completing the necessary forms. The goal of this proposal is to help Dr.

Jones, and other users like him, quickly and easily move through the training

portion of the COI website.

IssuesWith regards to training on the COI website, we found substantial

issues both in a heuristic evaluation and through usability testing. As a

team, we were able to find layers of different issues, and confusing pathways

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that lead nowhere. In our usability testing, our actual COI users became

frustrated and confused when trying to complete a task involving the COI

training. The training links were scattered throughout the website, and it

was hard for users to find the why, when, and how of training on the website.

SolutionOur team has created a solution that will simplify the training aspect of

the website and allow the user to easily be trained, renew training, or find

out information necessary for training. We have recreated the homepage to

include a single link titled, “Training” to take the user to a single page with

multiple links to answer questions and begin training. We believe that

centralizing this information will shorten the amount of time a user spends

on the website, and lessen the stress and confusion that users are feeling.

The following pages will provide evidence that supports our claim, as well as

what we have created in order to solve this issue.

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Persona

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Scenario Main goal for Dr. Jones: Because updating his IRB and COI training is so easy and accessible, Dr. Jones is able to pursue his research at full speed and still have time to juggle his busy life outside of his work with kids and the classes he teaches. Dr. Jones is busy to say the least. He is a full-time faculty member at the University of Utah, is married with two young boys, and fills any time he can with his environmental research fueled by his passion for saving Utah’s beautiful canyons. While using his spare time to do research in his small office at the University, Dr. Jones is busy reviewing and taking notes on an article while keeping an eye on his 4 year old playing with a toy truck on the ground in front of his desk. While reviewing the article, Dr. Jones feels a single vibration in his pocket telling him that he has received an email. Instead of taking out his phone, Dr. Jones opens a new window on his computer that he is already using and opens his email. There he finds a new email from the IRB telling him that his information on the site should be updated soon and that he needs to renew his training. Dr. Jones remembers that it has almost been 6 months since he last updated his information and decides to take a minute now to take care of it so it doesn’t slip his mind. In bright, bold letters in the middle of the email there is a link that takes him directly to the “Get Started” page. The page he is taken to welcomes him by name and has his past information already displayed. In bold letters it says on the first line, “START TRAINING”. Dr. Jones quickly moves through the first few steps that confirm past information is still applicable and moves him on to a new page that has new questions. Dr. Jones answers the first few questions and is taken to the COI page. This page he remembers had a lot of legal jargon that was confusing but is surprised to see that the page is mostly blank with a few questions. In each question there are words that are highlighted blue. Being curious, Dr. Jones

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hovers his cursor over the blue words and notices that when he does so a text box appears above the word displaying a definition for the word. This becomes helpful as he reads through the questions and finds a few words that could have multiple meanings. After a quick glance at the clock he suddenly realizes that he is late! He is supposed to pick up his wife and son from soccer practice. Dr. Jones quickly exits the browser he is using and shuts down his computer. He cringes when he does this because he assumes that he’ll have to start over with the process tomorrow. He then scoops up his son and rushes out the door toward the parking lot.

The next day, Dr. Jones is back in his office for a few hours to grade assignments and work on his research. When he turns his computer back on, he logs into his email to check for any emails from his students. At the top of his inbox is an email from IRB titled, “Would you like to continue?” Dr. Jones immediately remembers the evening before and how quickly he had to leave.

With a little time to spare he opens the email and sees another large link in the middle of the screen that says, “HI DR. JONES! Press HERE to continue!” He clicks the highlighted word and is taken directly back to the very question he left on. “Huh, that’s nice that it automatically saved all the questions I had already answered!” Dr. Jones thought.

Dr. Jones was easily completing the questions on the COI because he has never had any conflict of interests in his line of research. He understands that this is an important step in research though in order to properly regulate who gets funding and for the right reasons.

As he completes the questions he notices that a colorful bar is being filled-in at the top of his screen. He realizes that there are different colors for the different parts of the process he has completed. He is currently in the green section that covers the COI part of the process. He feels happy with how much he has completed in the short amount of time.

Within minutes Dr. Jones has renewed his training for the COI section and has finished updating his information. The final page thanks him for taking the time and clearly says that he has completed the process.

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Dr. Jones exits the website and moves on to grading assignments and

working on his research. The thought of the IRB or COI doesn’t cross his mind for weeks until it’s time to update his information again.

Heuristic EvaluationOverviewUser research conducted a heuristic evaluation on the University of Utah’s Conflict of Interest website to find problems that the user may encounter that may adversely affect their experience on the site. This report outlines some of the issues that presented themselves in the evaluation. Also, this report gives corresponding recommendations on what can be done to improve user satisfaction.

The researchers involved in this report took on the role of the user to evaluate the site. We wanted to better understand how easily our users found information in regards to the policies and practices of the COI department and how easily they were able to update their own personal information. Our evaluation was done solely on a desktop/computer, as that is the most common way our users access the site.

This evaluation explains that the user will have low reliability for success when using the site. The desktop experience on this site received a reliability score of 1.5. The key findings presented in the next sections explain the reasons for the low reliability score.

High Level FindingsVarious pages of the site were evaluated and certain elements were given a score on the following grading scale:

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After the scores

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averaged, the website received an overall reliability score of 1.5. This score is not acceptable to a user. The elements of the website that need to be changed are presented below along with recommendations of changes that can be made to those elements.

Each finding presented in this report will be labeled as follows:

● (Poor)● (Inadequte)

FindingsAesthetic and minimalist design

Finding (Poor): The website has too much text on the home page (See Figure 1). Most people are not going to take the time to read that much text. It needs to be simplified and condensed.

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Figure 1Recommendation: If the staff determines all of this information needs to be on the website, the text on the main page still must be shortened to no more than 100 words and a “READ MORE” hyperlink could be added for the rest of the content. But it is too much text for the home page.

Visibility of System Status

Finding (Poor): The website needs to have some sort of visual design bar that tracks the user’s progress in filling out the COI information.Recommendation: Adding a status bar similar to the one in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Recognition rather than recall

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Finding (Poor): The website currently has 3 different places where a user can go to find information about training. This is confusing to the user, and makes him or her frustrated and want to quit even trying to figure out the website. All of these training locations and links need to be consolidated into one location. Below are the three links associated with training:

Training Location #1: Business Relationship Reporting. Figure 3 shows a link on the home page, and can also be seen from other pages.

Figure 3

Training Location #2: The link in Figure 4 is a link named “ERICA” on the home page that also links to the training.

Figure 4Training Location #3: The COI Policy and Process Summary Link/Web Page (Figure 5).

Figure 5

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Recommendation: Add a new link under the Conflict of Interest Menu Bar entitled “Training” (See Figure 7). Under this one link, all of these areas of training can be listed and their purpose explained. The language needs to be clear, concise and helpful to users to help them know which, if any, of the trainings they need to participate in and when.

Figure 7

Match between system and the real world

Finding (Inadequate): On the Business Relationship Reporting page, the list does not occur in a natural order (See Figure 8). ‘Definition’ is listed after ‘Training.’ All of the concepts in ‘Definition’ are explained in ‘Training.’ It is a waste of the user’s time to complete ‘Training’ and then look through the ‘Definitions’ section.

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Figure 8

Recommendation: Changed the list order to: Definition- Training- Manage Discourses-Certification History

Consistency of links and pop-up definitions

Finding (Poor): When the user moves their mouse pointer to an underlined word that is highlighted with light yellow, it means that if they click the word, it links them to another site related to the word. However, the website does practice this consistently throughout the site. See example in Figure 9.

Figure 9

After clicking the hyperlink, it takes the user to this page about Policy 1-006 (See Figure 10).

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Figure 10

Then on the Management Disclosures page, it contains similarly formatted text, but it is not a hyperlink. Instead, a box with a definition appears when the user hovers over the word (See Figure 11).

Figure 11

Recommendation: Remove the highlights from the words that are not hyperlinked. To make the difference more clear, use underlined, blue text for hyperlinks. For definition boxes, underline regular text with a dotted line to indicate that there is another feature available.

Error Prevention

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Finding (Poor): There are two examples of errors found on the website. First, when a user clicks “Research”, “Page Not Found” appears (see Figure 12 and Figure 13).

Figure 12

Figure 13

Additionally, When a user clicks “Research Administration Training Series”, “There seems to be a problem” page appears (Figure 14 and Figure 15). Both error pages show that user is in trouble, but there is no a clear solution, especially in Figure 14.

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Figure 14

Figure 15

Recommendation: Need to eliminate error-prone conditions. All pages of the website should load, especially those that are related to the navigation section.

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Flexibility and efficiency of use

Finding (Poor): In the navigation bar, the two tabs called ‘COI Policy and Process Summary’ and ‘COI Guidance’ are not very clear about what will be found on those pages (See Figure 16). User has to click back and forth between those two links to find exactly what they are looking for.

Figure 16

Below is the page that the COI Guidance link takes the user to (Figure 17).

Figure 17

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Recommendation: The information contained in the COI Policy and Process Summary and the COI Guidance links needs to be combined or the “Guidance” portion needs to be included in the training portion.Aesthetics and personalization of contact page

Finding (Inadequate): The contact page in Figure 18 is not aesthetically pleasing. The page does not give the user hope that they are contacting an actual person.

Figure 18Recommendation: Add pictures of the three contacts above their respective titles to make the page more personal and real.

SummaryThe primary purpose of this evaluation is to understand the user experience on the University of Utah’s Conflict of Interest website. What we found is that navigating the site is a difficult and frustrating experience for the user. There is no clear ordering of information on the navigation bar and some of the pages. Also, there are also inconsistencies on hyperlinked words- sometimes a word is linked to a definition and sometimes it is not.

Fixed definition boxes need to be added in order to provide a more comfortable reading experience. Additionally, video demos should be linked to provide further information. Sometimes users find the site shows “page not found” and “there seems to be a problem” and are unable to move forward.

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Report of Usability Testing Introductions

Dr. Robert Hitchcock is an associate professor in bioengineering. He

specializes in medical device design and development, infusion systems,

biosensors, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. Dr. Kim Kaphingst is a

researcher and is interested primarily in health, literacy, cancer

communication, family history, and the communication of genetic and

genomic information. Both of their jobs require them to use the COI website

for their research. Our persona, Dr. Nathan Jones, like our usability testers,

also needs to update his COI forms periodically because of his job as an

environmental researcher. Dr. Hitchcock and Dr. Kaphingst use their

computers daily. When they do professional or extensive work, they always

use a laptop or desktop computer. Dr. Jones’ primary computer is his desktop

computer.

Task Evaluations

As usability testers, we conducted three tasks for both individuals. The

first task was to find the next date of the COI Committee Meeting. The

second task was to determine whether or not each participant needed to

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participate in COI training and to find the location for that training. The last

task was to update their disclosure statement.

Task Evaluation: Dr. Robert HitchcockTask #1: Find the Date of the Next COI Committee Meeting

Before beginning the task, Dr. Hitchcock did a quick glance and review

of the COI website. He immediately recognized that the website followed the

format of all of the University of Utah’s websites with its general navigation.

He clicked on the “Conflict of Interest” link and immediately went to the link

for the “Committee Schedule.” He completed this task in less than 30

seconds. This task was simple for him. Additional information could be given

on this website page as to when the information needs to be submitted (e.g.

is it before this deadline date listed on the website or is it due on the exact

date listed on the website?) That information is unclear and could be clarified

to help the users.

Task #2: Determine if COI Training is Needed

This task was incredibly difficult for Dr. Hitchcock to complete. He

clicked in three locations, all of which were wrong, before Laura intervened

and told him the correct location to click. This is due to the fact that there

are several places to go on the website for training. Some of his comments

were:

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● “I typically wouldn’t do this because the system would tell me if I

needed to go to training.”

● “For somebody who uses this once a quarter,” the information was

hard to find.

He also expressed concern that instead of funneling him to the correct

information, all of the links led him on different avenues. He said that this

information was “very hard to find.”

Task #3: Update Disclosure

The third task was also very difficult for Dr. Hitchcock to complete. He

noticed that the wording could be more clear on the website. The website

only says: “manage disclosures” and mentions nothing about updating them.

He also commented that it would be helpful if there were hyperlinks to

explain what some of the terms meant. He later realized he could hover over

them and explanations appeared, but it wasn’t intuitive. On the part entitled

“Receives Remuneration,” the answer ‘no’ is not an option. There are only

two possible answers currently available on the website: “I have” or “My

family has.” This was frustrating to Dr. Hitchcock. Other frustrations

included: an English grammar typo, the “Review and Certify to None” button,

and the error message when he finished. Some of his comments included:

● “I don’t want to do this again. Ever. I would do it kicking and

screaming. I’d be up at 2 in the morning trying to do this.”

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● “This isn’t something I WANT to do; it’s something that I HAVE to do…

it’s a hoop that I have to jump through. I really don’t want to do it ever

again.”

Conclusion for Dr. Bob Hichcock Usability Test

In essence, Dr. Hitchcock was frustrated with the experience of the COI

website—both its design and features. He is a smart man but still the process

was laborious. This is a strong indicator that these are not user errors. There

are problems with this website.

Task Evaluation: Dr. Kim Kaphingst

Task #1: Find the Date of the Next COI Committee Meeting

Dr. Kaphingst’s initial reaction of the page was that there was too

much text on the home screen. She noted that she would probably ignore

most of it if she were coming to the page to look for something specific. She

was not sure what the purpose of all that information was, but recognized

that if it was something she absolutely needed to know, she probably would

have missed it because reading that much text would waste time.

After being asked to find the date of the next COI committee meeting,

she headed straight for the navigation bar at the top of the page. She read a

few of the links out loud and then clicked the “Conflict of Interest” link which

dropped down another menu. She scrolled through the options and then

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selected “Committee Schedule”. The new page opened and displayed a list

of dates. Dr. Kaphingst noted that she found the information she was looking

for, but was wanting there to be more information available. She stated that

she wanted to know if there was a specific deadline to submit something to

be reviewed at the meeting. She also wished that any necessary paperwork

to be prepared for the meeting was linked with the dates.

Additionally, she noted that she would like an explanation of what to

expect at the meeting and what she needed to prepare to present at the

meeting. Adding on this information to the committee schedule page might

make these questions more clear. While Dr. Kaphingst successfully found the

information she was looking for, she was then faced with several more

questions when she found the committee schedule page. Users should not

be left with more questions than they started with when they visit the site.

Task #2: Determine if COI Training is Needed

Dr. Kaphingst was not as successful completing the second task as she

was the first task. When given the scenario, she determined that she needed

to find out whether or not she was a “special case” and needed to re-do the

COI training. From the home page she first clicked the link “COI Training”. It

took her to another page with a lot of text. She briefly read through the

information and noted that the “training” section included information about

regular training, but did not offer special cases in which training needed to

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be completed again. She became a little discouraged as she thought she had

found the answer, but actually needed to keep searching.

She was taken back to the home page where she then explored the

navigation bar. She hovers over the “Conflict of Interest” tab and scrolls

through the options. She sees “COI Guidance” and vocalizes that perhaps

this tab will give her the “guidance” she is looking for. After selecting that

link, she is sent to a page with several more links that do not mention

anything about training. She notes, “This is where I would probably just give

up.” The person giving the test encourages her to keep trying and she then

goes back to the navigation bar. This time she selects the link “COI Policy

and Process Summary.” In the middle of the page is a heading that reads

“Conflict of Interest Training.” She skims the following paragraph and notes

three bullet points that seem to be the special cases she is looking for. Dr.

Kaphingst tells us that she may have found the information, but she still is

not entirely sure. She explains her frustration in the fact that she clicked

several places that seemed to be related to training but were not. Training

needs to be clearly explained to the user in a place that is easy to find.

Task #3: Update Disclosure

Dr. Kaphingst was given a scenario about needing to update her

disclosure and seemed pretty confident about this task. She immediately

clicked the link on the home page called “Update and Certify COI

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Disclosures”. After clicking she was directed to a page she had previously

visited. She was prompted to click a link that said “START HERE” because

that seemed normal to her. She noted that she did not read or fully

understand the “terms and conditions” page. She agreed to the terms

anyway and moved forward. The person running the test then gave her

instructions about what options to select. She was annoyed with the buttons

because there was not a “NO” option. She felt like the form was incomplete

because she did not fill out the entire form. She stated, “I don’t like leaving

these things blank because it usually brings up an error message.”

After she said this, she clicked the “submit” button and was presented

with a paragraph of red text at the top of the page which immediately made

her think she had done something wrong. However, after reading the

message she noted that it was just telling her she did not have any conflicts

and that she should hit “cancel” to continue. She said that clicking cancel

“feels like all that time I spent was for nothing.” Users should never feel as

though they have wasted their time.

After clicking “cancel” she was brought to the page she had previously

been on. She stated that she wished it would change her answer from “I

Don’t Know” to “NO.” She said that someone might get stuck in a never-

ending circle if the form did not auto-update.

Conclusion for Dr. Kim Kaphingst Usability Test

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Overall, Dr. Kaphingst was able to find what she was looking for with

the links on the navigation bar. However, she mentioned that she thinks

some of the links are misleading and need to be more specific. She left in a

much less optimistic state of mind than she began. Users should never feel

as though they did not have success using a website for its intended

purposes.

ConclusionOur team is specifically going to solve the content problems in Task

#2. Both Dr. Hitchcock and Dr. Kaphingst feel the task was difficult and

frustrating. They found that several places that led them to the website for

training. This confuses the users and makes them want to quit trying. To

solve this issue, we will add a new link under the navigation bar titled

“Training.” Under this one link, all of these areas of training can be listed and

their purposes explained with links to their respective pages. The language

needs to be clear, concise, and helpful to users to help them know which, if

any, of the trainings they need to participate in and when.

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Journey Map

A journey map is a visual representation of what the user experienced

during the usability test. The four stages of the test are marked at the top of

the map. The blue lines represent positive experiences and the red lines

represent negative experiences. The length of the lines represent the degree

to which the user felt positively or negatively about each listed element.

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Graphic Description of Workflow

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Web Design ElementsThe site should follow The University of Utah’s specific visual style standards. This is described briefly as follows:

Fonts● Trajan Pro regular is to be used only for university wordmark and

headers● H1 headings are to be done in the Kepler STD font family● All other headers will be done in Myriad Pro bold● All ‘p’ text will use the Myriad Pro regular

Colors● Red HEX: #CC0000● Black HEX: #000000● Gray HEX: #808080

Proposed Design of Computer and Tablet

Home Page: Desktop and Tablet

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Training Page: Desktop and Tablet

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Begin Training Page: Desktop and Tablet

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