ux-tjswanson05

Navigating Chico State’s Student Portal

I utilize the student portal on a pretty normal basis whether it be to check in on classes, see if I have any notices etc… Although their system ends up being user friendly, as a new transfer student at the start of this semester it was a nightmare trying to figure out how to use it efficiently and to my own satisfaction.

The student portal is something that is necessary to be utilized by every student so you would think that it would be easy to get to and navigate but you surely would be mistaken. To start off this journey as a new student, I followed the link provided which takes you to the base dashboard where you are not logged in. The cognitive load on this screen is definitely something to remember, as I was deciphering where to go while my brain was on the fritz. I assumed that there would be a pathway to follow before you had to log in. This is where I encountered the biggest hurdle of my journey. Through clicking on the account center, you get taken to a new page where you are introduced with a mass amount of information that is unrelated to the original goal, which then led me back to the landing page.

Now the next step for me was following the user flow I went and signed into the website rather than taking the original route where I thought that recognition would take the reins instead of needing to recall something I had never learned. I tend to be fast whether it comes to clicking or typing, which led me to run into a bigger issue, which was their error handling. Through logging in and clicking too fast I was met with a screen that differed from what I was expecting. This screen made it even more difficult to follow the path I was originally trying to take. Although this pathway can lead to the same direction it can become confusing as the amount of information there it makes it seem as though all links lead to the same way.

After I got stuck in that loop on that page from clicking too fast, I went back to the page where I had originally started and went back through the motions only this time slower. Which led me to the end of my journey when I reached where I finally had to go. The interface of this final portion was well put together and loads easier to navigate then what I had previously encountered. Although this process was arduous and annoying, it led to me learning something that I needed to know for the future.