<aside> 📌 Any children's educational institution must include the parents as integral players. The Port Washington Children's Center contacted us to learn more about how they could improve their current website better serve the needs of the parents. Four Pratt students donned the role of usability experts and set out to carefully evaluate the websites' usability and, to recommend actionable solutions so that the parents of Port Washington Children's Center could effortlessly connect with the center for any information or services.

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• • Before getting into the findings of from our report, follow this reading key for my personal (and professional) findings.

Who was our Client?

The Port Washington Children’s Center was established in 1977 as a non-profit, non-sectarian child care center. They provide quality childcare and educational programs for young children in the Port Washington, New York community.

The center offers a wide range of programs for children from toddlers of age of 18 months through the school-age of 12 years, including full-day childcare, preschool, and pre-kindergarten classes. With highly qualified staff members and teachers, they put a high priority on giving the kids a secure, nurturing, and exciting environment.

What were our Evaluation Goals?

As, we usability experts, we conducted moderated usability tests focused on four main tasks which encompassed our evaluation goals keeping in mind some important usability parameters-

Usability Parameters:

1. Website navigation
2. Clarity and tone of labels and content
3. Readability of information
4. Imagery and visual design

Tasks:

1. Using the Homepage
2. Enrolling their child in a program
3. Using FAQs to find information
4. Finding the mission statement

<aside> ‼️ Determining the usability paremeters and the tasks, takes place simultaneously as the internal team discussions kick off. For a better clarity of the evaluation goals, understanding the organisational goals of the client is key. Which is why, for this usability study, it was also important to undestand the user group (parents) of PWCC’s website in context of its relationship with the client (PWCC). With this approach we were able to align our evaluation goals with the client brief.

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How did our Process look like?

<aside> 📢 Brief Kick-off

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<aside> <img src="/icons/drafts_gray.svg" alt="/icons/drafts_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Task creation

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<aside> 💬 Formulating an interview guide

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<aside> 🫂 Participant recruitment

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<aside> 💻 User interviews

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<aside> 🔍 Analysis - Identifying usability problems

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<aside> 💡 Ideating usability solutions

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<aside> 📌 Solidifying recommendations

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<aside> ✅ Client presentation and debrief

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Who were the Usability Experts on our team?

Bhavana P.

Esha M.

Julia M.

Laiba S.

What was my contribution?

• Interacting and following up with the client
• Contacting participants and scheduling interviews
• Moderating usability tests
• Note-taking for usability tests
• Analysis and report making
• Presenting insights to the client

Who were our participants and how did we recruit them?