Enhancing Usability: User-Centered Design Recommendations for Pratt's Career Services Website
Role
UX Researcher
Duration
6 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Figma Slides, Zoom
Team Members
Lillian MacGuire
Nidhi Gowda
John Veon
Betty Yang
Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) is dedicated to providing services to students to help them build skills and prepare materials for job searching. For this project, we were tasked with making sure students and alumni were able to access these beneficial services that the CCPD offers.
Over 6 weeks were completed moderated user testing surrounding key tasks that real users would be seeking to complete. Based on these tests, we were able to create recommendations to boost the accessibility of these services. These recommendations were created as mockups in Figma, and presented in the form of a slide presentation and formal research report.
Executive Summary
We met with CCPD Director Marias Lobianco over Zoom to understand her goals. Her key questions focused on whether students could easily access CCPD services (e.g., resume reviews, workshops, career fairs) via the website and how they currently navigate these features—through the site or alternative platforms like Handshake or email.
This discussion clarified priority areas for usability testing and reinforced our focus on the desktop experience, as students primarily use desktops for school tasks. We also identified a key constraint: the CCPD site is a subsection of Pratt’s main website, meaning any design recommendations must align with its existing template.
Project Initiation and Stakeholder Insights
Figure 1: Screenshot of kickoff meeting with our client
Developing User Personas for Target Audience
In our initial kickoff, we identified key insights about Pratt CCPD users. Both students and alumni use these services, primarily when preparing for internships and job searches.
Following the meeting, we developed a user profile to better empathize with our target audience (Figure 2).
Figure 2: User Persona
Recruitment Strategy for User Testing Participants
To recruit participants for testing, we created a screener questionnaire targeting our defined user group (Figure 3). We asked general demographic questions to ensure we were getting a diverse group of students from unique backgrounds, minimizing any potential bias.
We shared our screener through flyers around Pratt’s Brooklyn campus and, with help from our client, an email blast via Handshake, reaching a total of 46 undergraduate students. From this pool, we selected 8 participants total and reached out to schedule testing (Figure 4).
Figure 3: Screener questionnaire
Figure 4: Screenshot of our shared Google Sheet, displaying responses from the screener
Pratt is a school in New York City with a diverse student population, and we wanted to make sure we were replicating this diverse student body in our selection of participants. To achieve this, we carefully considered factors such as academic grade level, ensuring representation from students at different points in their journey at Pratt, from first-year students to those nearing graduation.
Additionally, we accounted for international status, selecting participants from a mix of domestic and international backgrounds to reflect the varied experiences and challenges faced by Pratt’s global student community. Finally, gender diversity was another key factor as we aimed to capture a broad spectrum of perspectives and user needs. In Figure 5, you’ll find the demographics of our study participants.
Ensuring Diversity in User Testing
Figure 6: Charts outlining our participant demographic information
The final factor we considered when screening participants was their familiarity with the website and the CCPD. We went for an even split between new users and those with prior website experience.
Researching both groups provided a more complete understanding of the website’s usability. For instance, new users could highlight onboarding and initial navigation challenges, while returning users could offer insights into the website’s efficiency and longer-term functionality. This approach helped us identify both first-time user pain points and opportunities to enhance the experience for regular users.
Novice Vs. Regular Users
Figure 6: Participants’ responses to the question, “Have you ever used the CCPD website?
We designed a think aloud, moderated, remote usability study focused on key tasks aligned with CCPD’s goals, including:
Finding resume review services and checking appointment availability
Exploring CCPD-hosted career events
Locating workshop information for a friend
Accessing portfolio review services
Finding alumni connections for career advice
A mix of quantitative and qualitative data was gathered through direct questions and by observing participant behavior during task execution. Some quantitative data metrics included:
Satisfaction rating
Ease-of-use rating
Time on task
Error rate
We also had our participants complete a series of pre-test, post-task, and post-test questions.
To ensure consistency, we developed a structured testing script for all four moderators. Before launching the study, we conducted a successful pilot test, confirming that sessions could be completed within 30 minutes.
Running a Moderated User Test
Figure 7: Excerpt from testing script
Figure 8: Screenshot from one of our user testing sessions
Our usability testing revealed significant issues with the CCPD website. When asked to describe their experience in three words, most participants used negative terms like frustrating, confusing, tedious, vague, and hard, indicating major usability challenges.
Some noted that certain aspects were intuitive but still compared the site to Craigslist, suggesting a lack of strong visual design and modern usability. Only two participants used positive descriptors like clean, clear, or efficient, and one of them was actually referring to Handshake rather than the CCPD website itself.
The Results
Figure 9: Participant responses to the question: “Can you please give me three words to describe your experience with the CCPD website?”
Another post-test question was as follows:
“After your experience with the current CCPD website, would you be inclined to revisit it?”
Most participants stated they would not be inclined to revisit the website, even if they found the services useful.
Additionally, 2 participants stated they would rather go directly to Handshake to access CCPD services, and 1 said they would just email an advisor for help.
Figure 10: Participant responses to the question: “After your experience with the current CCPD website, would you be inclined to revisit it?”
All evaluators were responsible for testing with 2 participants and recorded the results in a shared Google Sheet. When we came back together as a team to debrief our testing, It became clear our participants encountered similar issues when completing the provided tasks Figure x.
We grouped these similar findings into categories through affinity mapping; for example, all the participants whose results demonstrated issues with appointment scheduling were placed into the “Portfolio/Resume” bucket. Prioritization decisions were made based on the frequency of the labeled themes while also considering the impact-to-effort ratio.
Turning Findings Into Insights
Figure 11: Screenshot of our shared Google Sheet, displaying responses and notes from testing
Figure 12: Screenshot of our affinity mapping procedure
We prioritized what issues were most important based on the severity rating provided by the participants and the frequency of the issue.
Based on this, we pitched 4 recommendations to our client:
Reorganize content to be less dense, and add relevant
images to help with content searching
Introduce deep links to the appropriate pages in Handshake
Remove non-CCPD content from the left-side navigation
Add a sticky button that is clickable and leads to the CCPD FAQ
We were also sure to keep our recommendations in scope, as it was pointed out by our client that there was a strict template the CCPD website had to follow.
In the next section, our specific recommendations will be outlined with before and after images.
Insights to Recommendations
Proposed Recommendations
Finding 1: Participants have a hard time locating key information on pages
In our testing it was revealed that participants had trouble searching for specific information on the CCPD website. As a team, we discovered this was due to three key issues. First, the current photos on the website don’t assist in content searching. Second, pages have dense text that users don’t allocate time on, preventing them from accessing important information. Thirdly, external links are unclear, as they’re often hidden within paragraphs and easy to miss.
Recommendation 1: Reorganize content to be less dense, and add relevant images to help with content searching
To address usability issues with content searching, we integrated the resources page into the appointments page, as both focused on resume building and portfolio improvement, preventing confusion over separate sections. Relevant imagery was added to assist users in locating information more easily. Dense text areas were refined by organizing appointment-related services into dedicated sections for clarity. Finally, the “Schedule Appointment” section was made more prominent, with a clearer arrow to indicate it as a clickable link.
Finding 2: Users felt that finding information related to portfolio services and resume building appointments was difficult.
During usability testing, participants struggled to find resume services, portfolio updates, and workshop information on the CCPD site, spending significant time searching. When they clicked the Appointments tab, they were redirected to Handshake, where navigation issues persisted. Without clear labels like “Resume Help” or “Portfolio Help,” users had to explore multiple sections to locate relevant services, leading to further frustration.
Recommendation 2: Introduce deep links to the appropriate pages in Handshake
Building on Recommendation 1 from the newly designed appointments page, create a deep link to the Handshake appointments page for their specific context (resume appointments, portfolio appointments). This eliminates the time, frustration, and multiple clicks that students encountered when they were trying to find specific appointment groups for these activities.
Finding 3: The side navigation bar is overcrowded with irrelevant information
In our testing it was revealed that participants had trouble searching for specific information on the CCPD website. As a team, we discovered this was due to three key issues. First, the current photos on the website don’t assist in content searching. Second, pages have dense text that users don’t allocate time on, preventing them from accessing important information. Thirdly, external links are unclear, as they’re often hidden within paragraphs and easy to miss.
Recommendation 3: Remove non-CCPD content from the left-side navigation
The proposed solution is to streamline the user experience by removing content that falls outside the scope of the CCPD. This ensures participants have easy access to relevant resources and a clutter-free navigation experience aiding faster discoverability.
Finding 4: Overall, specific information is hard for users to locate
Participants encounter challenges in locating essential information on various pages within the CCPD website. The absence of a clear and prominent ability to quickly access contact information or seek assistance from CCPD staff results in frustration and inefficient navigation. Participants stated they wanted to contact the staff for further help or have an easier way to find answers. In testing, participants would resort to clicking every section of the left side navigation in search of information.
Recommendation 4: Add a sticky button that is clickable and leads to the CCPD FAQ
Add a prominently placed “Click Here for Help” CTA button at the bottom of every CCPD page to provide quick access to contact information and support. This improves usability, enhances user experience, and encourages greater engagement with CCPD services.
We presented to our client Marisa Lobianco and some other stakeholders involved in the project over a Zoom call. The reaction we received was very positive - they emphasized that our mockups could be implemented into the existing system with few issues. Olga Dolah, Admin Assistant to the CCPD stated the following:
“I am forwarding this over to the CCPD team, all of us are excited to see your work become a reality. The presentation was very insightful on how the students view our site as well as the CCPD as a whole. The Moderated User Testing Report is very beneficial and insightful covering our user goals in a comprehensive report. You are wonderful students who put in a lot of hard work, time and research and we all truly appreciate it!”
Client Reaction
In our presentation, we proposed the following next steps to out client and the rest of the team responsible for the CCPD website:
Design feature interventions according to recommendations proposed.
Evaluate new concepts at scale to measure success through beta tests to make iterative improvements and launch successfully.
Consider a full content audit to reduce text and optimize messaging for efficiency.
Next Steps
This project was my first experience conducting live, moderated usability testing, and I learned how much I enjoy it! I had some previous experience with research techniques like heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, and unmoderated testing, but this was my first deep dive into moderated testing.
Here are some of the most valuable lessons I took away from this experience:
How to Write Non-Leading Tasks: One of the hardest parts of this process was learning to write unbiased UX research tasks. It’s surprisingly easy to phrase questions in a way that leads participants toward a certain response. This experience sharpened my ability to craft neutral, effective tasks, making me a stronger researcher.
Value of Pilot Testing: Before our real testing sessions, we ran a pilot test to check the pacing. We quickly realized our script was too long, so we condensed it to fit within our allotted time. Moving forward, I’ll always conduct a pilot test to refine the structure and catch any issues beforehand.
Staying Silent During Testing: Using the think-aloud method, I had to be mindful of how I responded to participants. It’s tempting to say things like “great” or “perfect” when they uncover usability issues, but that can unintentionally influence their feedback. I made a conscious effort to stay neutral, ensuring that participants felt comfortable sharing their honest thoughts.