We're not testing you, we're testing the website.

Six high school juniors made their way to the former rubber factory that is home to mStoner in Chicago. Henry Broaddus and I watched intently as Patrick DiMichele or Sarah Weidaw asked each student to perform a series of tasks on a mockup of the new W&M site.

I wish the room had been big enough for all of you to be flies on the wall. It was fascinating, rewarding, and even a little nerve-wracking to observe the prospective college students surfing our site. Fortunately, a detailed report of the usability testing will be prepared by mStoner. Until then, here are a few of my anecdotal observations:

• Almost without exception, students clicked on Admission to find the cost of tuition; and on Campus Life to find out about student clubs.


• Almost all of the students commented about the beautiful photos of the W&M campus.


• Many of the student testers suggested that we make the list of "majors and minors" easier to find.


• Lots of students mentioned that they'd like to see more about athletics on the site.


• A good number of the students indicated that they would enjoy reading student blogs.

By the way, we're not done yet . . . we're in the midst of testing 10 more juniors as I publish this post.

posted by Susan Evans