Northumbria University Website survey

1
Northumbria UniversityWebsite survey

• Michelle Younger
• Marketing and Recruitment
• Winter 2007-08

2
Project background and objectives

• Objective of research
• The University wished to gather feedback from
  site users to assist in current and future site
  development
• Methodology
• In conjunction with the web team an online survey
  was designed to collect user feedback
• The survey was published 29/11/07 and removed
  06/02/08
• This presentation will discuss and summarise the
  findings of the survey

3
Respondent profile Who?

• 575 completed the on-line survey The majority
  (53) were current students
• 50 of respondents had visited more than 16 times
  in the past month
• 80 already knew the site address
• 52 accessed the site from home
• 96 reported having broadband (93 in 2006)
• 90 visited from the UK
• 19-21 is the largest age-band of users (27) but
  there is a greater spread than last year
• 27 spend 7-13 hours on the internet, a further
  26 spend 1-6 hours

4
Respondents Who?

• 53 were current students (55 - 2006)
• 19 potential students (27 2006)
• Other included
• Professional
• Potential job applicant
• Editor / publisher
• Marketer

5
Respondents How often do they visit over a
month?
6
Respondents Where accessed from?

• Other included
• 6th form
• Halls
• Other university included
• Ulster
• Durham
• Teesside
• Sunderland
• Bristol
• Leeds Met
• Leicester
• Bremen
• Mzuzu

7
Broadband Users?
8
How do they find the website?

• Search engines
• Google (vast majority)
• Yahoo
• Other
• UCAS

9
Locating the website potential students
10
Use of a handheld device to access site?
11
Time spent on Internet each week
12
Other profile information

• 90 of visitors to the site visited from within
  the UK
• Majority of Overseas visitors were either
  potential students or current students
• 10 Overseas was mainly made up of those from
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• Germany
• India
• Thailand
• Pakistan
• Nigeria
• USA

13
Age of respondents
14
Reasons for visiting the site
15
Reason for visit - Other

• Other included
• Check emails
• Accommodation
• Jobs page

16
Reasons for visiting the site Current students
17
Reasons for visiting the sitePotential students
18
Reasons for visiting the siteSupport / admin
staff
19
Finding information

• 87 found all/most of what they were looking for
  (87 2006)
• 1 could not find any of the information they
  were searching for (Potential and current
  students)

20
Need to contact us?
21
Use of search facility
22
Search facility rating
23
Search facility key visitors
24
Overall rating Key Users
25
Key Performance criteria
26
Performance Criteria
27
Performance criteria 2007 v 2006
28
Range and detail of information
29
Ease of finding information
30
Clarity of information
31
Look and Feel
32
Speed Pages were loaded
33
Technical Problems and
out-of-date information
34
Technical problems by User groups
35
Out-of-date information by user group
36
Comparison with other Uni websites
37
Comparison with other Uni websites
38
Particular likes and dislikes
- unprompted

• Likes - 44 commented on particular aspects of
  the website that they liked covering a wide
  range of areas/aspects including
• Easy to use, navigates, etc
• Look (welcoming, professional, modern, simple,
  colour, pictures, etc)
• Layout / design / homepage
• Dislikes 40 commented on aspects that they did
  not like again this covered a number of areas
  including
• Navigation (too many clicks, hard to find
  information)
• Design / layout (red and black, homepage
  different to other pages, dated, pictures at top
  of homepage, having to scroll down t click on
  Current student)
• A couple of specific comments about difficulty
  for visually impaired especially white on red
• Imagery unhappy looking students
• Speed loading time
• !!!!!!!Will do hand out with all likes /
  dislikes!!!!!!

39
Summary

• Current students largest group (53)
• Nearly 60 visit over 16 times in the past month
  not that surprising
• Length of time they spend on the internet each
  week varies greatly
• Generally happy with the site (over 80 (90 in
  2006) rate it as Good/Excellent overall)
• 70 report using the search facilities 60 2006
• Very happy with Range and detail of information,
  Clarity of information
• Feel improvements can be made around Ease of
  finding information, Look and Feel and Speed
  pages were loaded
• 11 reported experiencing problems (25 2006)
• 60 reported experiencing out-of-date information
  (14 2006)

40
Summary continued

• Potential Students are the second largest user
  group (19)
• Nearly half have visited over 6 times and nearly
  50 already knew the website address
• Majority spend over 7 hours on the internet each
  month much like current students
• Majority visit to find out about courses, the
  University in general and/or tuition fees
• 77 used the course search facility and 20 used
  the site search
• Over 95 rated the site as Excellent/Good overall
  (Range and detail, Speed over 90 rated these
  highly)
• 9 experienced technical problems (11 2006)
• 6 reported experiencing out-of-date information
  (10 2006)

41
Next steps

• The feedback is very positive but there are steps
  we can take
• Already redeveloping the Parents site
• Addressing current Student issues with
  MyNorthumbria
• Speed of the site should have increased by now
• Imagery has been amended
• Still need to address out of date information
• Next time drill down into how parents and
  potential students found us
• Publish the results on the site