Goal: “…[D]evelop a dynamic and welcoming OAP website to effectively serve our faculty, staff and by extension students and our key stakeholders.” —Fredrick Nafukho, Vice Provost of the Office of Academic Personnel
*Note: The Office of Academic Personnel (OAP) changed it’s name and acronym to the Office for Academic Personnel and Faculty (APF). Because the redesign was done before this change the case study will use the old moniker.
Project overview
The University of Washington’s Office of Academic Personnel (OAP) wanted to update and redesign their website to a more user-friendly, faculty-focused experience. We collaborated with various members of their office on the best way to update their site and bring it onto our WordPress theme so it was easier for them to edit long-term.
Knowing the project would start in late fall, we took extra time during the summer to conduct preliminary research, specifically a competitive analysis. We analyzed five sites, including the OAP site, to gain a better understanding of the subject matter and draw inspiration. Through this analysis, we learned how broad and diverse departments like these can be. Each university we examined appeared to have a different academic structure and approach to managing logistics. Even within the University of Wisconsin system, there was a separate office for UW Med.
Texas A&M’s information architecture in particular provided ideas for our redesign. The competitive analysis also raised key questions about the functionality of UW’s OAP site and how we could best adapt it to meet the unique needs and structure of OAP.
**If you’re interested in using our Competitive Analysis Template for your own projects please reach out to uweb@uw.edu
Proto-personas
Through meetings with our OAP partners, we identified three key user groups to consider when designing the site: prospective individuals interested in becoming academic personnel, current faculty, and unit administrators/academic support staff.
OAP proto-personas
Meet the OAP proto-personas
Anita serves as the proto-persona for prospective individuals looking to start careers in academia. She is a STEM graduate in her mid- to late 20s who wants to continue her research and is seeking a community.
Nicky represents the proto-persona for unit administrators. These individuals support the work of academic personnel at the UW. Some of Nicky’s goals include understanding how to navigate the various aspects of academic human resources and finding ways to connect with others in the UW community.
Peter is the proto-persona for current UW faculty, embodying someone who has been with the university for some time. His goals related to the site revolve around understanding his benefits and leave time, as well as contributing to his department’s leadership.
Components of the proto-personas
Each proto-persona had sections for behaviors, demographics and needs/goals. The points in each section were kept general and roughly based on previously understood information. They served as guidelines for the kinds of users we were hoping to reach during the research process.
User informational interviews
For our informational interviews, we conducted a total of seven: one librarian, four unit administrators (two longtime UW users and two new UW users), and two newer faculty members. These interviews uncovered issues with navigation, outdated and contradictory content on the site, and a general lack of understanding of the office’s functions. From conversations with the faculty members, we learned that they typically do not access this site directly; instead, they rely on their unit administrators and academic leadership to guide them to the right information.
Valuable user quotes about the OAP site
So I have bookmarks saved now and part of that was because it was not easy to navigate and we would get lost and get sent in so many different directions, so the pages or the resources that I frequent I have saved so I can go right to it.
User #2Unit administrator
As a person on the first year on the tenure track, I was feeling very anxious, and I wanted to see if there was any mental health support for new faculty. I googled it, and probably ended up in [the OAP] website, but I wasn’t able to find anything specific when I ended up looking for it.
User #1Faculty member
…there are almost too many resources because at times, one resource can lead you to another link to another link, maybe to an expired link and outdated link, one that repeats the same information, so sometimes you have to filter what content that is helpful for you.
User #3Unit administrator
User experience survey
To get a broader understanding of the user experience of this site, we conducted a survey from Dec. 1-21, 2023.
Breakdown of the 160 participants:
Academic unit leader: 12 or 7.5%
Faculty member: 49 or 30.6%
Emeritus faculty member: 1 or 0.6%
Librarian: 9 or 5.6%
Unit administrator: 82 or 51.3%
Our survey participants were divided into six distinct groups:
unit administrators
faculty members
frequent users (participants who visited weekly or more)
rare users (participants who visited a few times an academic quarter or less)
new UW users (participants who have been at the UW for two years or less)
longtime UW users (participants who have been at UW for six years or more)
Two standout pieces of information were that 82% of frequent users are unit administrators, while 84% of faculty members are rare users.
Personas
After the research, we refined our proto-personas into three distinct personas: Nina, Jean, and Daniel. We integrated pain points, needs, and goals into each persona to create a more complete picture of the individuals the site is meant to serve. Key components such as UW employment history, website usage (frequent vs. rare), needs and goals, and technical challenges were essential for understanding and addressing each persona’s unique requirements and derived from the user research.
**This process also allowed us to develop a persona template for future projects. If you’re interested in using our Personas Template for your own projects, please reach out to uweb@uw.edu.
Unit administrator persona: Nina Miller
Nina Miller represents unit administrators at the UW. One of Nina’s technical challenges is that she heavily relies on bookmarks and Google search to navigate the OAP site and find the information she needs. This point was supported by various aspects of our research, including website analytics. She also tends to approach OAP personnel with her questions rather than searching for answers herself, as it is easier.
Nina Miller persona breakdown
Nina Miller
(she/her/hers)
“Work hard, be kind.”
Work/title: Unit Administrator
Age: 32
Place of employment: College of the Environment
Time at UW: Over 6 years
Location: Seattle, WA
Website usage: Frequent Users
Bio
Nina is a unit administrator at the University of Washington College of the Environment. She is organized, thorough and has a great work-ethic which comes in handy as she wears multiple hats in her role. She enjoys the sense of leadership she’s gained in her unit administrator role and is not afraid to ask questions or speak her mind. She uses the Office of Academic Personnel website every week, mostly for academic titles and rank information.
Understand how to work with and navigate the various aspects of academic HR (information, job postings, policies, etc.)
Wants generated templates of reappointment letters and teaching evaluations when units ask for examples
Support College of Environment goals
Spend less time going down rabbit holes and digging for specific content
Staying informed about what’s going on in the UW community
Frustrations
Coming across outdated information and inconsistent language when browsing the OAP website
Long wait times when wanting a specific question in regards to policy and regulation
Information on OAP site is not always clear which job role it pertains to (ex. librarians, adjunct professors, tenured professors, etc.)
Inability to support the team as productively when working remotely in comparison to in-person work days
Technical Challenges + Considerations
Leveraging Google search and bookmarking to mitigate unfamiliarity with content navigation
Unsure what exact format to convert and send files in
Having to jump to and from various communication channels
Not having access to VPN when working from home
New faculty persona: Jean Kumar
We created a “new faculty” persona named Jean Kumar using data from new UW users who also identified as faculty. Jean provides insights into the needs and interests of prospective academic personnel, as she has recently transitioned into this role. Notably, she typically does not visit the OAP site at all; instead, she relies on information from unit administrators and academic leadership in her department to answer her questions.
Jean Kumar persona breakdown
Jean Kumar
(she/her/hers)
“Let curiosity be your compass.”
Work/title: Faculty
Age: 29
Place of employment: Information School
Time at UW: Less than 1 year
Location: Seattle, WA
Website usage: Rare user
Bio
Jean is a new faculty member at the University of Washington School of Information as an Assistant Professor. She is new to the academic terminology used at the UW compared to what she is familiar with from her previous university. Although she has interest in familiarizing herself further with the range of resources that the UW offers faculty members, with her busy schedule and priorities she lacks time to spend searching for them. So far she has only visited the Office of Academic Personnel website twice and very briefly before going to her unit administrator to answer her questions.
Stay informed about existing UW resources, particularly those that help with career advancement
Build connections within the UW network; especially interested in how she can get involved with more multi-disciplinary work
Knowing the qualifications for going on professional or family leave, especially if an emergency arises
Frustrations
Not knowing where the tenure track information is online
Confused over which leave policies she qualifies for
Aware that the UW has a lot of resources available, but they are not all in a central place
Receives plenty of email every day and worries she will miss an email for a career advancement opportunity
Technical Challenges + Considerations
Only recently learned that OAP exists (confused around OAP v. AHR)
Is a tech savvy person but does not have time to dig for information
Receives a high frequency of emails per day
Current/longtime faculty persona: Daniel Gray
Daniel Gray serves as a persona for a recently tenured professor at the UW who is heavily involved in research and academic leadership roles. Important aspects for him regarding the site include benefits, sabbaticals, and promotion and reappointment information that could pertain to the postdoctoral researchers he works with.
Daniel Gray persona breakdown
Daniel Gray
(he/him/his)
“Each obstacle is an opportunity for progress.”
Work/title: Tenured Faculty
Age: 44
Place of employment: School of Public Health
Time at UW: Over 10 years
Location: Seattle, WA
Website usage: Rare user
Bio
Daniel is a recently tenured professor at the School of Public Health and has been at the UW in some capacity for 10 years. He enjoys his close-knit community of Masters of Public Health students and fellow faculty members. Between work, research and leadership roles he is extremely busy and visits the Office of Academic Personnel website about once a year. He usually looks for promotion and reappointment information that might apply to the postdocs that he works with. Daniel is not as familiar with digital technology as some and does not have the time or bandwidth to constantly be learning complicated online systems.
Provide valuable mentorship to students aspiring to excel in his expertise area
As recently tenured, wants to learn more about what his benefits look like now
Working on building and fostering more interdisciplinary collaboration at the UW
Frustrations
Has a hard time with online systems that aren’t easy to navigate or straightforward
When he can’t find an answer online easily he naturally goes to a unit administrator with his questions
Interested in going on a sabbatical but confused by what the necessary steps are
Technical Challenges + Considerations
Is not comfortable with using digital platforms so it takes him a bit longer to learn them
Trouble navigating a newly updated website after familiarizing himself with the past version
Extremely busy in his role as a researcher, educator and leader in his department
Sitemapping
Old menu navigation
The existing menu navigation for the OAP site mostly followed how their office was structured internally. This meant that the ‘Academic HR’ section in the menu was extremely overloaded in comparison to the others. Because unit administrators like Nina tended to navigate the site using Google search and bookmarking pages, we knew that disrupting the URLs within the actual site structure would’ve caused more challenges for users down the road. It also would increase the scope of the project and so it was decided that for site structure changes those should be done later, in phased approaches.
Old OAP site navigation
Old menu breakdown
OAP Home (goes back to OAP homepage)
About us
Vision, mission, values
Executive leadership
Office and team contacts
Faculty Affairs Advisory Committee
Academic personnel reports
Academic HR
Academic jobs
Academic titles and ranks
For academic personnel
Getting settled
Time off and leaves
Promotion and tenure clock waivers
Academic responsibilities
Safety in the workplace
Leaving the UW
Resources
Forms & templates
Due dates calendar
Updates & announcements
eDigest archive
Upcoming training/forums
Training & forum archive
Working with academic personnel data
Policies and procedures
Recruitment
Compensation
Sabbatical leave
Provost guidance on annual hiring
Provost’s lecturer guidelines
Voting guidelines
Appointment actions
Academic reviews
Adding/updating appointment
Merit and related salary adjustments
Promotion and tenure
Reappointments
Separations
Service periods
Visas
Visa guidance for unit administrators
Resources for International Scholars
EOAA (goes to Equal Opportunity & Affirmative Action site)
Advance (goes to Advance Center for Institutional Change)
Faculty Advancement
New menu navigation
The existing menu navigation for the OAP site mostly followed how their office was structured internally. This meant that the ‘Academic HR’ section in the menu was extremely overloaded in comparison to the others. Because unit administrators like Nina tended to navigate the site using Google search and bookmarking pages, we knew that disrupting the URLs within the actual site structure would’ve caused more challenges for users down the road. It also would increase the scope of the project and so it was decided that for site structure changes those should be done later, in phased approaches.
New OAP site navigation
New menu breakdown
Home (button to OAP homepage)
About us
About us
Executive leadership
Office and team contacts
Faculty Affairs Advisory Committee
Academic Personnel Reports
News
News
eDigest archive
For academic personnel
For academic personnel
New to the UW
Time off and leaves
Academic responsibilities
Faculty promotion & tenure
Safety in the workplace
Voting guidelines
Faculty development
Faculty Advancement
ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change (off-site link)
Academic HR
Academic Human Resources
Academic titles and ranks
Resources
Forms and templates
Policies and procedures
Appointment actions
Visas
Academic jobs
Purple menu navigation
In the UW theme there is a secondary purple menu in the top right hand corner that typically provides links to various general populations for the university (Students, Parents, Faculty & Staff, Alumni). If this menu is customized it is focused on relevant, external sites for that particular site. For this redesign we made a few changes to their already customized purple menu that would compliment the new white main menu navigation. Linking to UW Human Resources (UW HR) was still important but we included links to Faculty Senate, UW Finance and the new link to Workday Employee Help as well. (The last was previously known by a different name and URL and was going through a transition while this redesign was happening.) We no longer had to link to the UW main homepage because that was already linked in the header via the W logo on the left.
OAP purple menu navigation
Old menu breakdown
UW Home
ISC
UW HR
Faculty & Staff Insider
New menu breakdown
UW HR
WorkDay Employee Help (formally ISC)
UW Finance
Faculty Senate
Wireframing/prototyping
Screenshot of the original OAP homepage and examples of the initial low-fidelity wireframe sketches for the new homepage.
The next stage was to wireframe out the pages that got a full redesign, including the homepage, the AHR landing page and the For Academic Personnel page. For the homepage we sketched out two different low-fidelity wireframe options before making mid-fidelity mockups to share with our OAP partners and leadership.
Screenshots of mid-fidelity concepts and initial OAP homepage prototype on the far right.
Through discussions we came up with a prototype that merged elements from both initial concepts. Providing a clear pathway to the AHR landing page was a crucial piece in redesigning the OAP homepage due to both it’s importance and because many users’ confusion of the difference between OAP and AHR.
Project launch
The new OAP home and landing pages, along with a more streamlined information architecture, focuses more on the users that would be navigating the site and less on the internal structure of the office. Recognizing the goal and purpose of the main homepage versus the AHR landing page, each was designed to cater to different users and their needs. The homepage is set up as an entry point for new and prospective users while the AHR landing page is geared more towards the current, internal audiences while still maintaining clear explanations to allow users to navigate the content on their own. The redesign was also set up in a way to make it easier for the site to be improved upon and developed in the future, especially because the sheer size of the site initially didn’t allow for a complete overhaul in one go. Opting for an iterative, phased approach, the initial new site was launched within the projected timeline.
**Use the wayback machine to view the OAP site before the launch of the redesign May 29, 2024
