RECOMMENDATION
Aesthetic appeal, but there's room for improvement
Participants universally appreciated the website's minimalist and clean design, describing it as beautiful, diverse, and culturally engaging. However, we identified the following five usability issues. Additionally, we suggest optimization directions for each.
Reorganizing The Navigation Bar
Many participants were confused with where things are on the navigation bar, especially when searching for ICI’s professional development programs, which is one of the main objectives of their organization. There is also the inconsistency in the capitalization of links and the spacing.
To address this, we are proposing a few changes. First, we are recommending only capitalizing the beginning of a link so all links are consistently formatted. We also changed the “Learning” page title into “Programs” because “Learning” is not intuitive, which can be frustrating for users. The ICI logo has been moved to the left to make it clear to users that they can use it to redirect to the homepage.
Reorganizing The Navigation Bar
Users generally praised its minimal and clean design. However, an interesting observation arose during the sessions. Some users noted that while the text elements displayed an underlined state upon hovering, providing a clear indication of clickability, the images lacked a similar visual cue.
We introduced a darker overlay for images to indicate the hover status while maintaining the website's clean aesthetic while providing users with clearer cues for interactive elements. It aligns with best practices in user interface design, ensuring that users can confidently navigate the website, explore content, and engage with interactive elements seamlessly.
Redesigning Exhibition Information
Many users expressed that the exhibition-related information did not meet their expectations. For instance, some users only discovered that the exhibition was too distant from the current date (December 2023) after clicking on the exhibition details.
To quickly inform users about the exhibition duration, we implemented introduced a "Future" tab where exhibitions occurring more than three months from the current date are featured. Also, we added a new line displaying the exhibition dates directly on the exhibition cards, enabling users to quickly assess the timing of the event.
Incorporating Headings for Quick Content Access
Users are presented with a comprehensive paragraph detailing the specifics of the exhibit, which is undoubtedly beneficial. However, the majority of our participants perceived the page as text-heavy and having low readability.
To improve the readability, we broke up the lengthy paragraph by incorporating “OVERVIEW” and “DETAILS” headings to allow the users to navigate through the information seamlessly. This approach involves presenting a summary at the beginning of the content, offering a quick overview for the user before delving into details.
Adding Call to Action for Open Applications
Users were not able to easily identify which programs were actually accepting applications. One participant stated, “I wished it was a little bit clearer where I should go ... if they're calling for applications for something, it should be the top section.”
To solve for this problem we are recommending that ICI aggregate all open applications in one page and link this page prominently at the top of sections that hold program or intensive information.
