Separate familiarity from usability.
Across six one-hour sessions, two internal participants knew the site; four external participants did not. We analyzed them separately so prior knowledge would not hide first-visit barriers.
05 / Exemplars in Global Health
Evidence,
made usable.
Help visitors find, interpret, and use global-health research.
- My contribution
- UX researcher. Collaborative usability research and recommendations.
- Team context
- Four UW HCDE researchers.
- Stage
- Usability study
- Timeframe
- 10 weeks
- Delivered
- Final report with findings, severity assessments, and recommendations.
Findings → recommendations / reconstructed
- Unclear topic orderGroup related research.
- Missing graph labelsName each measure.
- Hidden hover detailsSignal interactions.
- Uneven emphasisUse a consistent hierarchy.
Recommendations from the study, not implemented changes.
Key decisions.
Design for understanding.
Finding research did not guarantee understanding it. Missing graph labels and inconsistent emphasis prompted recommendations for clearer measures and a more consistent reading hierarchy.
Reveal useful interactions.
External participants missed hover-based information in the benchmarking tool. We recommended visible interaction cues and guidance, connecting each recommendation to an observed barrier.
Outcome & next step.
Translated navigation, graph-comprehension, and discovery barriers into specific design recommendations.