TECHNICAL WRITING / UX RESEARCH
Usability Report
A remote, unmoderated usability study of the Minnesota State University, Mankato website: thirty participants, nine task-based scenarios, and a scored assessment of how easily people found what they came for.
PROJECT
The question was whether someone arriving at the Minnesota State University, Mankato website could find what they came for: the cost of a degree, how to add a course, where the mental health resources live, what international applicants need. Research ran from 15 March to 5 April 2024. What is published here is the portfolio edition, rewritten as technical writing for presentation while preserving the original methodology, participant data, findings, and recommendations.
METHOD
Remote and unmoderated, chosen for a limited budget and timeline on Nielsen Norman Group guidance. Thirty participants were recruited by email, the Mav Life app, social media, and campus bulletin boards, spanning undergraduates, graduate and international students, faculty, staff, parents, and people with no university affiliation. Each drew one of nine persona-matched scenarios, worked it unsupervised in about five minutes, then rated ease of use, satisfaction, and recommendation likelihood on five-point scales alongside three open-ended questions.
FINDINGS
Every participant completed their assigned task, giving a 100% completion rate, a mean ease-of-use rating of 4.3 out of 5, and a composite Usability Score of 80 out of 100 — a custom framework weighting task completion, time on task, navigation errors, and satisfaction at 25 points each. Search and the homepage drew the strongest responses, with 60% naming search as the easy way around the site. Friction sat elsewhere: locating degree costs rated lowest for ease at 3 out of 5, international admissions lowest for satisfaction, and 20% of participants struggled to find the search feature they otherwise liked.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Three, in priority order. Make search visible with a labeled field beside the magnifying glass icon. Streamline result pages that 15% of participants described as overcrowded. Reorganize sidebar menus dense enough to cause information overload. Scenario-level data, participant feedback, and the scoring formula are all in the full report — the same shape of usability study we run for other organizations.