The Micronutrient Information Center (MIC) is center at Linus Pauling Institute within Oregon State University that provides high quality information and research on micronutrients through their website. This project focused on improving the user experience of the website by understanding the current users--and ultimately implementing some solutions through code.
To learn about our users and issues within the website, we conducted some cognitive walkthroughs using GenderMag--putting ourselves in the user's shoes-and ran some user surveys. Using this information we designed several prototypes for the improved website. This also informed the design for the custom tech solution.
One usability issue we focused on was how users seeking a definition to a key word were redirected to a different 'glossary' page, making the experience inconvenient. We developed an API to address this by storing definitions of the glossary page in a SQL database. Then, we made a website feature to provide definitions whenever terms were hovered over, as opposed to redirecting the user to the glossary page.
Team
- Caden Hawkins - hawkicad @oregonstate.edu
- Lauren Scacco - scaccol @oregonstate.edu
- Fatima Moussaoui - moussaof @oregonstate.edu
- Shweta Pattanaik - pattanas @oregonstate.edu
Acknowledgements
This project would not have happened without the guidance from our project partners at the MIC.
- Alexander Michels - Research coordinator and Communications officer | Linus Pauling Institute
- Victoria Drake - Manager | Micronutrient Information Center - Linus Pauling Institute