Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) of myCSULB by Meghann

Herron & Nguyen Global Bringing you HTA since 2008

Client: Academic Computing Services at CSULB Project: myCSULB

Executive Summary California State University of Long Beach is one of the 23 universities in the CSU system. With more then 35,500* students enrolled yearly, CSULB has to provide many services to its new and current students as well as their own faculty and staff. Services provided to the CSULB population can include academics, admissions, finances and teaching tools. With such a large student population CSULB has provided students with a website called myCSULB. The major goal of this website is to provide users accessibility and a convenient channel to university services, this will allow students to complete tasks easily, such as registering for a class or paying for tuition. However, students have complained about how difficult the site is to use, this in turn, will cause problems for student users such as being dropped from a class or not paying a fee on time. Students will be subjected to use other means to complete their tasks such as physically going to Enrollment Services which can be costly to the university. Determining interface and design issues with myCSULB will allow the university to make appropriate changes to the web interface and produce a better experience through easier navigation and a less confusing format. To provide interface and design recommendations this project includes:  Background information/User identification  MyCSULB goals  Project assumptions  Major Student functions (task) analysis  Hierarchical Task Analysis Several Hierarchical Task Analyses (HTA) were produced through the completion of major student tasks. From the HTA the following recommendations were made:  Student Center should be the “home” page  Allow term to be selected from Horizontal Menu bar  Provide hyperlinked info to pop up boxes  Change button language  Provide one method for critical processes  Provide email confirmation  Offer training courses

* As of Fall 2006 according to www.csulb.edu 2

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………..4 Background…………………………………………………………………..5 Methods……………………………………………………………………..5-7 Results………………………………………………………………………8-10 Conclusion & Recommendations………………………………………….12-13 Appendix A………………………………………………………………….14 Appendix B………………………………………………………………….15 Appendix C………………………………………………………………….16 Appendix D………………………………………………………………..17-21 Appendix E………………………………………………………………..22-23 Appendix F………………………………………………………………….24

Introduction The purpose of this report was to develop a Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) of the activities that students commonly perform on the myCSULB website. Students at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) are encouraged to use the myCSULB website to complete a large portion of their administrative and academic duties (such as registering for classes and viewing grades). The need to develop an HTA of the activities performed on myCSULB stems from student’s complaints about the difficulty of using the website. Difficulty using myCSULB forces students to use other methods for completing their administrative and academic duties that are more costly to both students and CSULB. An example would be if a student was unable to figure out where to pay their tuition on myCSULB they could be forced to go to Enrollment Services to do so. This is costly to both the student and CSULB, for the student it is time consuming and for CSULB because they would have to pay for extra staff to accommodate the many students that may also have a problem completing tasks on myCSULB. The current users of the myCSULB website are maintenance staff, students, faculty, and guests; however the primary focus of myCSULB and the HTA will be on the student users. There are potentially 35,500* users of myCSULB, since some students report difficulty in using myCSULB then this may reflect upon the entire student population. Because the major goal of myCSULB is to provide student users with convenient accessibility to major academic and administrative functions a HTA of the major duties that students perform on myCSULB shall highlight the problems of the website and demands that the student users encounter when using the site that prevents them from completing their tasks. The HTA can assist to create a more useful and effective website for the student users. Herron & Nguyen’s goal will be to perform a HTA on several major student functions and assess the demand on students and possible task errors that prevent a user from reaching their goals. From the HTA’s performed, design interface recommendations are made that should increase students accessibility and their rate of task completion.

* As of Fall 2006 according to www.csulb.edu 4

Background Herron & Nguyen Global were contacted by Academic Computing Services of CSULB to perform a Hierarchical Task Analysis on the myCSULB website based on the report finding that, many students find it difficult to use myCSULB. Since myCSULB is the main method students use to complete university related tasks, it is vital for myCSULB to be accessible to all student users. Inaccessibility will lead to errors in completing tasks for students and will potentially affect the university. In performing a HTA, Herron & Nguyen Global used the following assumptions:  HTA was conducted for the main population: Students  Students will already have a myCSULB account  Students have at least logged in to myCSULB once before  Students use myCSULB at school/home  Students are fluent in English reading and comprehension  Students are using a Mac Operating System version 9.x or above with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 +  Students are using Microsoft Windows version 2000/XP/Vista with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 +  HTAs are based on principal investigators (Herron & Nguyen) knowledge of myCSULB as current student users

Methods Herron & Nguyen Global used their experience as current myCSULB users to compile a list of all functions (tasks) that student users can perform on myCSULB. Eight items were then selected from the list based on whether it was considered to be a major function or process for the student users (see Appendix A). The list was then complied based on the:  frequency of use - are functions that are used most frequently and have been arranged from most used to least used (see Appendix A)  cost of errors - are functions that if performed incorrectly, have a large impact and these have been listed from most critical to least critical (see Appendix A)  potential barriers - are potential barriers that would keep the users from performing their goal (see Appendix B)

From these lists, principal investigators choose 4 tasks that student users frequently perform and conducted a HTA on each task.  HTA 1 - Add a Class  HTA 2 - Accept Financial Aid  HTA 3 - Make a Payment  HTA 4 - Check Course Grade Scenarios were then created to provide a context to show the conditions students may be under while performing these tasks and what the consequences may be for not being able to complete the said tasks because of an interface error. There were 4 scenarios in total and corresponded to the 4 Hierarchical Task Analyses. A sample of a scenario is presented below (see Appendix C for all scenarios):

Scenario 2:  Regan is a first year grad student and has just started this semester; she is also living away from home and will need to pay for rent and food. Regan is also a full time student and does not currently work. She needs to accept her financial aid award as quickly as possible to receive her financial aid before the end of the month to ensure that her disbursement check will arrive on time. Failing to do so will result in her being evicted from her apartment and starving. HTA’s were developed breadth first starting with the goal of the task, for example, if the goal was to complete financial aid, the task was to accept financial aid. The task of accepting financial aid was then broken down to sub-goals, “enter student center”, “view financial aids”, and “accept/decline loans”, which needs to be completed in succession to complete a goal. Plans are also included to indicate the order of sub-goal completion and are represented numerically such as Plan 0 or Plan 1. Since the focus of the HTA was on producing design recommendations, the HTA followed more of a procedural hierarchy that incorporated user demands (Assistants refer to user demands). Figure 1 is an example of a HTA used in this investigation:

Figure 1. Goal: accept financial aid. Assistants (demand on users): 0 - Know term, 2.1.a/2.2.a/3.a - Know subsidized/unsubsidized loans. Plan 0 indicates that the user must complete sub-goal 1 or 2 or 3. Plan 2 indicates that users must complete 2.1 and then 2.2 but must know Assistant 2.1.a and 2.2.a 2. Plan 3 indicates that the user must do 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 in that order and must know Assistant 3.a. SUCCESS indicates that the goal has been met while FAIL indicates that the user did not complete the goal.

Results HTA 1 – Add a Class shows that to complete the goal of adding a class (0), students must first be able to select the term (0.a). After selecting the term students will have to search for a class or browse the course listings for the course they want (1 or 2). Once a class has been found they will then have to select that course to be added and confirm that it has been added successfully (3). Several errors can present themselves in completing these sub-goals of “searching for classes, browsing the course catalog and adding/confirming. When searching for classes or browsing, students are required to input knowledge about the “Subject”/”Department” as well as “Career” path (1.1 or 2.1). Without this input students will fail the task because students will not be able to add the course they want. Additionally “Subject” in Search Classes and “Department” in Browse Catalog refer to same category listing and can confuse users. In the Add/Confirm step users will have to finalize the registration process and make sure there are no errors to complete the goal (3.2 or 3.2.1). If an error appears students will have to find the source of the error and determine if they can recover from it (3.2.2 or 3.2.2.1). If an error does occur while adding a class the cost of error will be that the student may add the wrong class and will have to drop or swap that course. Figure 2 shows the HTA 1 diagram (see Appendix D for a visual presentation of adding a class by searching for classes)

Figure 2. Goal: add a class. Items highlighted in red show user demands, which if not correct, lead to errors in completing the goal. All errors except 3.2.2.2 are recoverable.

HTA 2 – Requires user to accept a financial aid loan (0). Students will have to know and input the term they want to accept a financial aid load for (0.a). Next, students will have to either complete Plan 2 or Plan 3, Plan 1 is a longer path that will lead you to Plan 2. Plan 2 will lead students to view financial aid by term and aid year (2.2 or 2.1). In both Plan 2.2 and 2.1 users must know the difference between subsidized loans and unsubsidized loans and they may accept the wrong one, if they know the difference and are able to select the correct one then they must click on “accept” box for the loan they want and click on the “decline” box for the loan they don’t want (2.1.2 or 2.2.2). Next, students have to click on the combined “Accept/Decline” button which may confuse users as to whether they are only to click on the “accept” check box or the “decline” check box or click both “accept” and “decline” check box. Students may succeed by clicking to accept the correct loan and decline the unwanted load and then clicking the “accept/decline button”. Plan 3 8

will also allow users to accept financial aid. For this process students must also know which loan to accept and click on the “accept” or “decline” boxes. However, the accepting or declining buttons are now separate and are labeled differently. Here the labels are “accept all”, “decline all”, “clear all” and “submit”. Students will get lost in the button choices and may submit without accepting any loan at all and fail to complete to goal. Cost of error in this task will result in students accepting or declining the wrong load or failing to accept or decline any loan. If they are able to accept the correct loan, click “accept” and then click the “submit” button they will succeed. However, having two processes to complete a major student function may limit their success rate (see Appendex E).

Figure 3. Goal: accept financial aid. Items highlighted in red show user demands, which if not correct, lead to errors in completing the goal. Plan 2 and 3 show different paths to complete the same goal.

HTA 3 - Checking a course grade. To start out the students have two options to check their grades (0). They can either check their grade in the student center (1) or they can select to browse their degree progress report (2). Within this step the problem that the users face is that there are two completely different ways of checking their grade. If the students check their grade from the student center they are able to find a tab labeled “check grade” that will assist them in finding their grade, where as in the progress degree report, the students must first know the institution and report type before they can move forward. In this step the students are required to complete both of these procedures (2.1) successfully, if they do not know or make an error in either one of these procedures they will fail. However, if they are successful and complete this sub-goal they are then brought to a screen that displays their progress at the university. From this stage the process demands the students must select another tab labeled “course history” which must be select to view their grades (2.1.1). However course history is not indicative of their goal which is to check their grades. Referencing back to the student center the students are required to know the term that they would like to view before they can view their grades(1.1) Cost of error in this task will result in viewing the grade for the wrong term which is a recoverable task. See figure 4 for a HTA diagram.

Figure 4. Goal: check grades. Items highlighted in red show the user demands, which if not correct, lead to the errors in completing the goal.

HTA 4 – Making a payment. There are two ways for a student to complete the goal of making a payment. They can either access make a payment from the student center (2) or they can choose to make a payment from the left hand side of the screen (1). In either case, the student is then taken to a new website where they can make a payment. At this stage students have the option of completing the sub-goal two different ways: by either E-Check (1.1) or Credit Card (1.2). However, the credit card may not be a Visa. It is at this stage that students may encounter problems if they select the wrong item to pay for. The student may also encounter another problem where they might make an error within the “continue to check out” button (1.2.1.1.3) where they might input the wrong credit card information. If students don’t agree to the surcharge (1.2.1.2) they will not be able to complete their goal. If they agree to the surcharge (1.2.1.1) they have to select an item to pay for (1.2.1.1.1). See figure 5 for a HTA diagram.

Figure 5. Goal: make a payment. Items highlighted in red show the user demands, which if not correct, lead to the errors in completing the goal.

Conclusion & Recommendations Based on the Hierarchal Task Analysis of the major functions of myCSULB these are the recommendations that Herron & Nguyen Global propose. Implementing or adhering to these recommendations will aid in either creating a new website or assist in improvement on the current version of myCSULB which will be able to assist student users with easy access when using myCSULB.  Student Center should be “home” page We recommend that the student center be the “home” page. When you log into myCSULB you are taken to the announcement page. We propose that when you log into myCSULB that you are immediately taken to the student center. This will make the student center the main portal to myCSULB functions as opposed to the navigation menu on the left hand side (see Appendix F).  Announcements can be moved to right hand side of Student Center We recommend that the announcements be moved to the right- hand-side of the student center (currently it is the home page). Students are able to perform all of their functions in the student center, therefore we recommend for this to be the first thing that students see when they log into myCSULB (see Appendix F).  Allow term to be selected from Horizontal Menu bar We recommend that somewhere on the website (preferably the top- right handside) for there to be a box where the users are able to select the year and or term they would like to view. Currently users have to select the year and term for most student functions they perform. If you add this box it will allow users to cut this step out. Therefore if the user wants to view only current information then they would select the current year/semester in the box and they will only be viewing information for this year (see Appendix F).  Provide hyperlinked info to pop up boxes (i.e. Subsidized/Unsubsidized loans) We recommend that the site provide pop up boxes for students so that they are able view more information such as definitions. Currently when users are on the financial aid website they are unable to view both definitions of what subsidized and unsubsidized loans are. This can also be useful if students are searching for classes and want to look up course/section # and descriptions.  Separate combined buttons (i.e. Accept/Decline) We recommend that the current buttons be changed so that there is only one button to accept a function and only one button to decline. Currently there is only

a combination button (“Accept/Decline”) and it aids in confusion, students don’t know if they are accepting or declining.  Change button language (i.e. Accept all/Decline all to Accept Checked Boxes Only/Decline Checked Boxes Only We recommend that the language on the financial aid buttons be changed. For example, if the buttons stated: “accept all checked boxes only” and “decline all checked boxes” only instead of “accept all” or “decline all” the users would clearly know that each button referenced that if you check the box you will be accepting or declining all the checked boxes. Also subjects and departments should be changed to one or the other when searching or browsing for a class.  Provide one method for critical processes (i.e. financial aid) Currently myCSULB offers at least two different ways of accepting/declining financial aid. We recommend only having one way of completing the process which will aid in less confusion about which route to take in completing your goal.  Provide email confirmation for processes such as registering for classes or an email to: functionProviding an automatic e-mail generation will give student users conformation that they have successfully completed a task/function. An example would be that if you add a course to your schedule myCSULB automatically generates an email confirmation to the students.  Offer training course included in University 100 or SOAR orientation Offering training courses in University 100 courses or in SOAR orientation on the myCSULB website will help acclimate the students with the functions and procedures that myCSULB offers.  Offer multiple language selection MyCSULB should be offered in different languages since 30 % *of the transfer student population and 6%* of the current students are from another country report that English is not their first language.

* As of Fall 2006 according to www.csulb.edu 13

Appendix A  Eight major student functions: Financial Aid/Pay Fees/Register for Classes/Search Catalog/Check Grades/Order Transcripts/Manage Profile/Check Progress Report  Frequency of Use (most used to least used) • Register for Classes (+/-/swap/waitlist) • Pay Fees • Financial Aid (accept/decline/select lender) • Search Catalog • Check Grades • Check Progress Reports • Manage Profile • Order Transcripts 

Cost of Errors (most critical to least critical) •

Pay Fees

•

Financial Aid (accept/decline/select lender)

•

Order Transcripts

•

Search Catalog

•

Manage Profiles

•

Check Progress Reports

•

Check Grades

Appendix B  Potential Barriers • Registering for class  Can not find course in schedule  Class is full • Financial Aid  View wrong term  Accept/Decline wrong award • Pay Fees  Select incorrect item for payment • Search Catalog  Input wrong course or section # • Manage Profile (email)  Prioritize wrong email account

Appendix C

Scenario 1 & HTA: Add a Class 

Timmy is a Senior at CSULB and is at home working on his Windows XP PC. He is looking to add a popular class for the Fall 2008 semester and wants to do it as quickly as possible so he will not have to register for the waitlist, however, he does not have a course schedule book. He also needs this class as a last GE requirement so he can graduate. Timmy will either have to search for the class he wants or browse the catalog. He begins by first logging into www.my.csulb.edu where he inputs this student ID number and password. He has not added any classes to his schedule for next semester therefore he can only add a class and not drop or swap any classes. If Timmy does not get in this course then he may have to delay graduation.

Scenario 2 & HTA: Accept Financial Aid 

Regan is a first year grad student and has just started this semester; she is also living away from home and will need to pay for rent and food. Regan is also a full time student and does not currently work. She needs to accept her financial aid award as quickly as possible to receive her financial aid before the end of the month to ensure that her disbursement check will arrive on time. Failing to do so will result in her being evicted from her apartment and starving.

Scenario 3 & HTA: Make a Payment 

Today is Wednesday March 12, 2008 the last day to pay your tuition. Suzy realizes that she needs to pay her tuition by 6pm and the time is currently 4:30, if she doesn’t pay her tuition today she will lose all of the classes she has added. She has a non-Visa credit card and is currently using a PC in the school lab.

Scenario 4 & HTA: Check PSY 518 Course Grade 

Julie took her last final for the Fall 2007 semester two weeks ago. Julie is also a member of the CSULB Volleyball team and will being going to the national championships in February. She will need to check her last semester grades, specifically PSY 518, to make sure that she did not fail and be ineligible to play at the nationals.

Appendix D â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Adding a Class by Search Assistant 0 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Input Term Inputting the wrong term may lead to add a class to the wrong semester

Plan 1 – Search for Class Searching for a Class requires that user know their “Subject” and “Career” without this knowledge user will have to browse.

Plan 1.3 – Select Class to Add If users knew the “Subject” and “Career” they could find their class and select the course from the same page.

Plan 3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Add/Confirm Course This step requires users to make sure they are adding the course they want. Not confirming this step will lead to adding the wrong course.

Plan 3.2 Finalize and Check for Errors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Users will have to confirm that there are no errors in adding a class or determine if the error is recoverable, if not they have failed.

Appendix E Plan 2 Financial Aid Method 1 Red circles indicate the loan details but no loan description as well as combination buttons that can confuse users

Plan 3 Financial Aid Method 2 Red circles indicate loan type and a hyperlink for more information on only one type of loan as well an accept button and submit button

Appendix F Proposed home page. Red circle indicates where the term select scroll bar should be. Black circle indicates were the Announcements could be moved to.