1. Market Research: Informing the Tippie College of Business Website Redesign
Principal Investigators: Ben Olson and Wen Qi Ong (Haley)
Research Objectives:
Our research goal is to understand the ease of use of the redesigned Tippie homepage as measured by how
prospective students – high school juniors and seniors – and current non-Tippie-enrolled University of
Iowa students respond to four select elements of the homepage:
1. Scrollbar: We define “scrollbar” as the slideshow of images and links at the center of the
homepage. A scrollbar can provide useful links to current events, program rankings, and images
of campus. According to mStoner, Inc., a higher education digital marketing firm, a survey of
top-tier law students revealed program rankings are their number one decision factor taken into
account before applying.1
2. “Apply” Button: The “apply” button is located at the very top of the Tippie homepage. We focus
on the “apply” button because it serves as the call to action for prospective students of any type to
move from exploring what Tippie has to offer to actually making their college selection.
Therefore,we need to make sure that the button is visible and inviting so that prospective
students can easily apply when ready.
3. Drop-down Menus: For the purpose of our research,we focus on the menu under the “Academic
Programs” link on the yellow banner that instantaneously drops down when a cursor scrolls over
the link. Drop-down menus allow visitors to easily see lists of majors and categories of links.
The Nielsen Norman Group, a website user-experience consulting firm, notes that “mega menus
[drop-down menus] may improve the navigability of your site. By helping users find more,
they’ll help you sell more.”2
In Tippie’s case, “selling more” refers to getting more people to
apply to Tippie College of Business.
4. “Prospective Students” Tab: This tab is located on the bottom blue banner that outlines the
scrollbar. Upon clicking on this tab, visitors are taken to a page that includes a “Dean’s
Welcome” link, a “Student Life” link, a “Where a Tippie Degree Will Take You” link, a “Why
Tippie” link, an “Apply Now” button, and a “Meet Our Students” link. According to mStoner,
1 mStoner, Inc.’s Admit or Die: Addressing Admission Decision Factors on Websites. 2014.
http://www.slideshare.net/mStoner/admit-or-die-addressing-admission-decision-factors-on-websites
2 Nielsen Norman Group: “Mega Menus Work Well for Site Navigation.” 2009.
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mega-menus-work-well/

2. Inc., colleges should constantly work (via their marketing materials) to justify why students
should spend tens of thousands of dollars on their education in terms of the value of majors and
career opportunities.3
As mentioned, Tippie’s “Prospective Students” tab includes much of this
justifying information.
Ease of Use: To be more specific, we define ease of use by the following properties:
1. Images do not interfere with visitors reading text and links on scrollbar slides.
2. Visitors take a relatively short amount of time to visually locate the “Apply” button on Tippie’s
site versus competitors’ sites
3. Visitors take a relatively short amount of time to visually locate a list of majors under the
“Academic Programs” drop-down menu on Tippie’s site versus competitors’ sites
4. Visitors take a relatively short amount of time to visually locate the “Prospective Students” tab on
Tippie’s site versus competitors’ sites.
Competitors:
A major portion of our research looked at comparative findings between Tippie’s homepage and the
University of Nebraska – Lincoln’s homepage. eduStyle, an e-design website, holds a Higher-Ed Web
Award contest each year. In 2014, UNL won the Judge’s Choice for Best Overall Website.4
Due to this
accolade, we initially consider UNL an aspirational website, so we seek to measure Tippie’s homepage
against UNL’s in terms of design and functionality.
Prospective Students’ Website Behavior Patterns:
In addition to these four core website elements, we also aim to understand prospective students’ website
usage behavior, such as how often they visit college websites, how often they look at college social media
pages, how often they look at college websites on mobile devices, and how they generally search for
college information. We believe understanding prospective students’ (and their parents’) website
behavior patterns will allow Tippie web designers to cater the design to this target population’s needs.
Methodology:
To meet our research objectives, we designed, conducted, and produced severalreports/studies, including
an eye-tracking study, a scrollbar survey embedded in the eye-tracking study, open-ended interviews with
3 http://www.slideshare.net/mStoner/admit-or-die-addressing-admission-decision-factors-on-websites
4 eduStyle: “2014 Winners:Higher-ed Web Awards.” 2015. http://www.edustyle.net/awards/2014/winners.php#1

3. eye-tracking study participants, a Qualtrics survey to gauge website usage behavior, and automated
analyses to predict where website visitors will naturally look on the homepage.
Eye-Tracking Study:
Using Tobii eye-tracking technology, which utilizes a webcam to track individuals’ visual gazes as they
look at images on a computer screen, we designed a slideshow, similar to PowerPoint slides, that included
various visuals of the Tippie homepage, UNL homepage, and scrollbar slides, to measure the ease of use
of each respective website.
Overall, we recruited 26 subjects, all enrolled at the University of Iowa but not in the Tippie College of
Business. Logistically, we could not bring in prospective students as subjects, but the group we used is
unfamiliar enough with the Tippie website that it can, to some degree, mirror the familiarity of
prospective students.
First, we focused on the Tippie homepage. We began by allowing subjects to explore and click through
the homepage for up to two minutes. This exploratory period parallels how prospective students visit
college websites in reality: they presumably take time to explore the features and content of the website
before making their college decision and clicking on the “Apply” button. Moreover, we produced heat
maps that summarized where all participants tended to look during this exploratory period. Then, we
gave subjects three tasks: “Find and click on the “Apply” button,” “find and click on the “Prospective
Students” tab, and “find and look at the list of majors.” As we will explain in more detail later, we
measured how long it took each subject to visually locate these features. We then repeated this exact
process for UNL’s homepage. Then, we provided five screenshots of various college’s slides from their
scrollbars to understand where our subjects gazed while looking at them. We produced cluster maps for
each of the slide pictures that show the percentage of subjects who looked at defined areas of the slide.
Our study has a qualitative component that includes heat maps and cluster maps. Heat maps show color-
coded clusters of where all 26 subjects cumulatively gazed on a particular image – in our case,the Tippie
homepage and UNL homepage. Red represents larger concentrations of gazes while yellow/green
represents smaller concentrations of gazes. Cluster maps show defined areas on an image where all 26
subjects tended to gaze. Within each cluster area,Tobii displays the percentage of all subjects who
looked at that cluster area. These maps will allow end users to see,at a basic level, where participants
tend to look on the homepage. Quantitative measures,surveys, and interviews complement these maps by
providing insights about the specific obstacles (or specific design strengths) that caused participants to not
look (or to look) at various areas.

4. Quantitatively, we measured how long (in seconds) it took each subject to visually locate (for the first
gaze) the “Apply” button, “Prospective Students” tab, and a list of majors. We measured this time to first
fixation for both Tippie’s homepage and UNL’s homepage. Then, after deleting four outlying time
measurements that occurred due to subjects misunderstanding directions or computer glitches, we used a
two-tailed paired samples test with 5% significance to determine the statistical significance of our time
measurements and to compare whether it was faster to locate these features on one homepage compared
to the other. All results are statistically significant at the 5% significant level.
Scrollbar Survey:
We embedded a survey into our eye-tracking study, so all 26 eye-tracking subjects took our survey. Our
research goals are to understand if scrollbar slide images distract subjects from text and what content and
images subjects want to see and read on scrollbar slides.
Open-Ended Interviews:
At the end of our eye-tracking study, we asked all 26 subjects the same open-ended interview questions
about general website design, Tippie’s homepage design, and general Internet search behavior.
Qualtrics Survey:
We designed a Qualtrics survey to help us understand the website usage behavior of prospective students
and parents. We visited a Tippie prospective students visit day and general University of Iowa
prospective students visit day to conduct our survey, so most of our 35 respondents are high school
juniors and seniors (we did not differentiate between the two) and their parents.
Summary of Findings:
Eye-Tracking Study:
Time to First Fixation: We have included the SPSS output tables that display the statistical results of
a two-tailed paired samples test in an appendix. In addition, we include our analysis and supporting
visuals for each feature.
1. “Apply” Button: Subjects find the “apply” button between 0.75 to 4.07 seconds faster on Tippie’s
homepage versus UNL’s homepage (p-value=0.006).5
Details:
5 See Statistical Appendix:Figure1 for more details.

5. Image 1: UNL Homepage – location of “Apply” links. Only 12 out of 26 subjects located the front-and-center
“apply” button on UNL’s homepage. The other 14 subjects navigated to the top red hamburger drop-down
menu to try and find the button there. Though a link entitled, “Apply for Admissions” exists in this drop-
down, many subjects struggle to locate it as they have to scroll over the red bar to even see it. Overall, if
visitors do not find the front-and-center “apply” button, they will mostly likelystruggle to find it using other
navigational methods.
Image 2: Tippie Homepage – location of the “Apply” link. Though Tippie’s “Apply” button is not front-and-
center on the middle of its scroll bar, its position at the top of the homepage seems to be relatively effective as
most subjects locate it immediately.

6. 2. List of Majors: Subjects find a generallist of majors between14.17 to 27.75 seconds faster on
Tippie’s homepage versus UNL’s homepage (p-value=0.000). 6
Details:
Image 3: Tippie Homepage – listof majors. Tippie’s ease of use in this scenario is due to the strength of the
drop-down menu located under the “Academic Programs” tab. Subjects scroll the mouse over the tab, and
instantaneously, the menu drops down with a visual listof links for each major. In additions, categories (such
as “Undergraduate Programs,” “Master’s Programs,” etc.) are clearly denoted within the drop-down menu,
so students can easily find majors pertaining to their qualifications.
6 See Statistical Appendix:Figure2 for more details.

7. Image 4: UNL Homepage – list(grid) of majors. UNL includes a graphical grid listing of majors that also
incorporates corresponding pictures. However, UNL has a relatively vertically long page, and this grid sits at
the bottom half of the page, so visitors cannot readily see it unless they remember to scroll down to the
bottom half of the page. And, if subjects do not scroll down, no link under the red hamburger menu’s drop-
down menu clearly expresses where to find a list of majors (the closestlink to suggestmajors is “Colleges and
Departments”). In an extreme case, one subject took almost one minute to locate a listof majors because he
did not scroll down to the grid listing.
3. “Prospective Students” Link: Subjects find the “prospective students” link between 1.71 to 4.28
seconds faster on UNL’s homepage versus Tippie’s homepage (p-value=0.000).7
Details:
7 See Statistical Appendix:Figure3 for more details.

8. Image 5: UNL Homepage – “Prospective Students” link. Subjects find UNL’s “Prospective Students” link
relatively faster because it is located centrally on the main red bar of the hamburger menu. The white text
offsets the red background, making it visually easy to locate.
Image 6: Tippie Homepage – “Prospective Students” link. On Tippie’s homepage, the “Prospective
Students” link sits on the bottom blue banner that surrounds the scrollbar. Moreover, due to color choice,
the blue banner does not create as much contrast as the top yellow banner.
Heat Maps:
1. Tippie Homepage:

9. Image 7: Tippie Homepage – heat map. There is a large concentration of gazes at the center yellow button on
the scroll bar. There is also a smaller concentration of gazes on the “apply” button. Connecting this
observation to our time to first fixation results,the concentration of gazes on the “apply” button corresponds
to the relatively fast time it takes people to locate the button in reality.
2. UNL Homepage:

10. Image 8: UNL Homepage – heat map. People actually do gaze at the front-and-center “apply” button, yet,
based on our time to first fixation results,less than half of subjects actually click on that button when asked
to find and click on the “apply” button. Perhaps the button’s central location causes people to naturally look
at it, but the button’s transparency does not inspire subjects to take action to click it (it is not visible because
it blends in with the background).

11. Scrollbar Cluster Maps:
We chose scrollbar images from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, Castleton College,
the University of Puget Sound, Iowa State University’s College of Business, and Tippie. The slides
from each of these college’s scrollbars each offered different design layouts, allowing us to test the
effectiveness of each different design.
1. Kelley School of Business Slide:
Design elements include a visible outline of the text coupled with a high-definition picture of
a large face with the outlined text situated beneath the face. 93% of all subjects look at green
cluster, and 96% look at yellow cluster. Clearly, the photograph and outlining of the text
draw a majority of subjects’ visual attention. According to TheNextWeb,an international new
source that reports on internet technology, a 2015 web design trend includes utilizing
professional, high-quality, custom photography.8
A trend does not automatically equate to
functionality, but it represents a way to enhance a website’s design aesthetic.
Advice:
Consider outlining text or placing it below an object of interest (in this case,a large, high-
definition face picture).
Image 9: Kelley slide – cluster map. 93% of all subjects look at green cluster, and 96% look at yellow cluster.
Clearly, the photograph and outlining of the text draw a majority of subjects’ visual attention.
2. Castleton Slide:
8 TheNextWeb: “10 Web Design Trends You Can Expect to See in 2015.” 2015.
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/01/02/10-web-design-trends-can-expect-see-2015/12/

12. Design elements include completely separating text from picture, and the picture is not in
high-definition. 96% of subjects look at green cluster, and 85% of subjects look at yellow
cluster. So, despite the separation of text and image, most subjects still look at both the text
and the image.
Advice:
Consider separating text and images on slides to create a less-cluttered look while still
drawing visitors to read content and look at pictures.
Image 10: Castleton slide – cluster map. 96% of subjects look at green cluster, and 85% of subjects look at
yellow cluster. So, despite the separation of text and image, most subjects still look at both the text and the
image.
3. University of Puget Sound Slide:
Design elements include using a high-definition scenic image with no faces. 100% of
subjects look at green cluster, and 96% of subjects look at yellow cluster. The appearance of
five clusters denotes that subjects looked at many different areas of the picture rather than a
small subset of areas. This result could be due to the wide nature of the picture, a lack of text,
and the scenic nature of the picture. The university logo and text sits in contrast to the
background, so they effectively capture subjects’ attention.
Advice:
Scenic pictures give prospective students a feel for the campus environment, but make sure
text sits in contrast to the image.

13. Image 11: Puget Sound slide – cluster map. 100% of subjects look at green cluster, and 96% of subjects look
at yellow cluster. The university logo and text sits in contrast to the background, so they effectively capture
subjects’ attention.
4. ISU College of Business’s Slide:
Design elements include images of faces where the gaze paths intersect with the text.
According to Emma, an email marketing firm, “eye-tracking studies show we’ll follow
images of faces and look where they’re looking.”9
86% of subjects look at green cluster, and
85% of subjects look at yellow cluster. Therefore,our results confirm Emma’s finding.
Advice:
Center text in relation to people’s gaze paths in photos.
Image 12: ISU College of Business slide – cluster map. 86% of subjects look at green cluster, and 85% of
subjects look at yellow cluster. Design elements include images of faces where the gaze paths intersect with
the text.
9 Emma: Why We Click: The Simple Psychology Behind a Great Call to Action. Accessed through ICON.

14. 5. Tippie’s Slide:
Design elements include a grid of many small faces. Smashing Magazine,an online
magazine for professional web designers and developers, notes that slideshows are “an
excellent way to display information such as images in an organized and compact manner.”10
Though a grid of many small faces is one method to display images in a compact way, we
originally hypothesized that all the faces would distract subjects from reading the text. Our
hypothesis is wrong: 100% of subjects look at the green cluster.
Advice:
Do not shy away from using images with many faces,but make sure the text contrasts with
the faces in the background (using larger, colored text).
Image 13: Tippie slide – cluster map. 100% of subjects look at the green cluster. Though a grid of many
small faces is one method to display images in a compact way, we originally hypothesized that all the faces
would distract subjects from reading the text.
Scrollbar Survey:
We asked our 26 eye-tracking subjects the following questions:
1. What type of content do you prefer to see featured on a university’s scroll bar? (latest
news/happenings, links to degree programs/majors, school and degree rankings, profiles of
students, faculty, alumni)
2. What type of visuals would you prefer to see on the slides of a scroll bar? (picture, video,
animation)
3. Regarding pictures on scroll bar slides, which of the following do you prefer to see?
(students/faculty in campus environment, campus scenery,off-campus events)
10 Smashing Magazine: “Slideshows in Web Design: When and How to Use Them.” 2009.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/09/slideshows-in-web-design-when-and-how-to-use-them/

15. Results:
1.
Image 14: When asked what type of content they prefer to see on a university’s scroll bar, most subjects want
to see current events and information about degree programs and rankings.
2.

16. Image 15: When asked what visuals they prefer to see on scrollbar slides, most subjects prefer pictures, while,
surprisingly, more prefer animations to videos. More research could be done on the use of animation on
websites – could these animations refer to caricatures of Herky, for example, or something else?
3.
Image 16: When asked what they prefer to see in still pictures on scrollbar slides, most subjects prefer to see
students and faculty in their day-to-day lives on campus or general campus scenery.
Open-Ended Interviews:
We asked our 26 eye-tracking subjects the following questions:
1. Can you describe a time when you encountered a website that was difficult to use? If so, what is
the name of the website? What design features made it difficult to use?
2. Can you describe a website that you frequently visit that is easy to use? What is the name of it?
What design features make it easy to use?
3. Regarding to the Tippie website, were there any problematic elements, or in contrast, any
effective, easy-to-use elements? If you could, what is one design change you would make to the
Tippie website, if any?

17. 4. Can you please describe the general process you take when searching for information pertaining
to your major, student organizations, or any other UIowa content? (For example, some students
go to Google while others go to the main UIowa homepage and use the search bar there.)
Common Anecdotal Observations:
 Many subjects want every category on Tippie’s top yellow banner (in addition to “Academic
Programs”) to have a drop-down menu.
 Several subjects mention ICON as an easy-to-use website because of its clearly denoted
categories (such as clearly linked course websites and simple categories such as “My
Courses”). Subjects mention that ICON is high on functionality but low on style.
 The majority of subjects give overall praise for the redesigned Tippie homepage – they did
not have many concrete suggestions for design improvements other than adding more drop-
down menus.
 All but a couple of subjects follow a common UIowa search process:they go to Google and
type in UIowa search terms rather than using the search link on UIowa’s homepage. In the
2014 E-Expectations Report,a yearly survey of high school seniors and parents conducted by
Noel-Levitz (a higher education consulting firm), the firm recommends, “With the emphasis
[prospective] students place on academic program information, campuses must realize that
their academic pages need to be optimized for search. Many students are no longer coming to
the home page and navigating to information on academic offerings, but instead typing in
search terms related to programs of study…”11
Advice:
Anecdotally, our evidence confirms Noel-Levitz’ survey results. We therefore recommend Tippie
and UIowa continue to use search engine optimization to make sure prospective students (and even
current students) can easily find academic program information using their preferred search methods.
Qualtrics Behavioral Survey:
We asked 35 respondents (46% prospective students, 46% parents/guardians, 9% current students or
relatives) about their familiarity with Tippie’s website, important features they want to see on the
homepage, the ease of finding the “Apply” button, and their social media and mobile engagement with
Tippie’s website. Overall, our respondents are slightly unfamiliar with the Tippie website.
11 Noel-Levitz (with OmniUpdate, CollegeWeek Live, NRCUA): 2014 E-Expectations Report: The Online Preferences
of College-Bound High School Seniors and Their Parents. 2014. Accessed through ICON.

18. For brevity, we summarize the most notable findings.12
 Three most important features for respondents to see on the Tippie homepage:
Image 17: The top two results here (Academic Program Listings and Student Life Information) also show up
as top results in the 2014 E-Expectations Report.13 Moreover, Student Life Information is a component of the
“Prospective Students” tab, which, based on eye-tracking measurements, needs to be made more visible.
 We show respondents a screenshot of the Tippie website, and then ask them to rank the ease of
finding the “Apply” button on a scale of 1 to 7 (extremely easy to impossible).
12 See Qualtrics Appendix:Figure 1 for more details aboutthe familiarity of the subjects.
13 Noel-Levitz (with OmniUpdate, CollegeWeek Live, NRCUA): 2014 E-Expectations Report: The Online Preferences
of College-Bound High School Seniors and Their Parents. 2014. Accessed through ICON.

19. Image 18: Average of 4.23 (neither easy nor difficult). Time to first fixation reveals Tippie’s apply button is
relatively fast to find. But, without comparing the button’s effectiveness to a comparison website, the button
is not necessarily easy to find in the qualitative sense.
 86% of respondents have never visited UIowa’s or Tippie’s social media pages.14
E-Expectations
Report finds that 94% of its surveyed high school seniors, when given a choice, opt for a college
website versus a college’s Facebook page to obtain information.15
So, our results complement the
report.
 77% of respondents have never visited Tippie’s website on a mobile device.16
E-Expectations
Report finds that 71% of its surveyed high school seniors have looked at a college website on a
mobile device.17
So, our results do not align with the report.
Recap and Website Redesign Advice:
Based on all the components of our research,we highlight the following findings and advice for web
designers to take into consideration:
 On average,people can visually locate Tippie’s “Apply” button and Tippie’s list of majors much
more quickly than on UNL’s homepage. In contrast, on average,people can visually locate
UNL’s “Prospective Students” link more quickly than on Tippie’s homepage.
14 See Qualtrics Appendix:Figure 2 for more detailed information.
15 Noel-Levitz
16 See Qualtrics Appendix:Figure 3 for more detailed information.
17 Noel-Levitz

20.  Comparatively, people can locate Tippie’s “Apply” button quicker relative to UNL. However,
based on our Qualtrics survey, in and of itself, the button is not necessarily easy to find. Tippie’s
“Apply” button can be made more actionable and visible: Emma recommends adding “now” at
the end to create urgency,and make the button larger and circular because people naturally want
to click on circles.18
 Tippie’s “Prospective Students” tab should be made more visible: possibly make the bottom
banner yellow instead of blue or consider moving the “Prospective Students” tab to the top
yellow banner.
 Consider making all the yellow-banner categories (“Student Life,” “Research and Technology,”
“Centers and Institutes,” “About Tippie”) have drop-down menus.
 Most prospective students and parents have not visited Tippie’s website on a mobile device or
visited its social media pages. So, you may want to focus on optimizing the non-mobile website
or, conversely, focus more attention on adapting the website to a user-friendly mobile platform.
 When choosing scrollbar slide design, feature current events on campus, photos of campus
scenery,and photos of students in their day-to-day life on campus. Rethink including videos and
individual profiles of students (unless related to current events).
 Overall, UNL has an aspiration design aesthetic but NOT an aspirational functionality.
18 Emma: Why We Click: The Simple Psychology Behind a Great Call to Action. Accessed through ICON.

21. Statistical Appendix
Figure 1: SPSS output table for the mean time to first fixation count for Tippie’s “Apply” button minus the
mean time to first fixation count for UNL’s “Apply” button. We omitted four outliers.
Figure 2: SPSS output table for the mean time to first fixation count for Tippie’s listof majors minus the
mean time to first fixation count for UNL’s list of majors. We omitted four outliers.

22. Figure 3: SPSS output table for the mean time to first fixation count for Tippie’s “Prospective Students” tab
minus the mean time to first fixation count for UNL’s “Prospective Students” tab. We omitted three outliers.

23. Qualtrics Appendix
Figure 1: On a scale of 0 to 7 (no familiarity to complete familiarity), we ask respondents how familiar they
are with the Tippie website. The average response is 3.03, indicating that, on average, subjects are slightly
unfamiliar with the website.

24. Figure 2: Of the 14% of respondents (five respondents) who had visited Tippie’s or UIowa’s social media
pages, one never visited in the past 6 months, one visited less than once a month in the past 6 months, and so
forth.
Figure 3: Of the 23% of respondents (eight respondents) who had visited Tippie’s website on a mobile device,
most visited in this medium two to three times a month for the past six months or less than once a month for
the past six months.

25. References
eduStyle: “2014 Winners: Higher-Ed Web Awards.” 2015.
http://www.edustyle.net/awards/2014/winners.php#1
Emma: Why We Click: The Simple Psychology Behind a Great Call to Action.Accessed through ICON.
mStoner, Inc.: Admit or Die: Addressing Admission Decision Factors on Websites. 2014.
http://www.slideshare.net/mStoner/admit-or-die-addressing-admission-decision-factors-on-websites
Nielsen Norman Group: “Mega Menus Work Well for Site Navigation.” 2009.
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mega-menus-work-well/
Noel-Levitz (with OmniUpdate, CollegeWeek Live, NRCUA):2014 E-Expectations Report: The Online
Preferences of College-Bound High School Seniors and Their Parents. 2014. Accessed through
ICON.
Smashing Magazine:“Slideshows in Web Design: When and How to Use Them.” 2009.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/09/slideshows-in-web-design-when-and-how-to-use-
them/
TheNextWeb:“10 Web Design Trends You Can Expect to See in 2015.” 2015.
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/01/02/10-web-design-trends-can-expect-see-2015/12/