Website Redesign Survey Results

We offer several courses on artificial intelligence. So it was only natural that several months ago, I asked ChatGPT, the AI website created by OpenAI, to evaluate our website at www.aikenlearning.org and make recommendations to improve clarity, usability, and navigation. (Note that using ChatGPT was a random choice. That choice does not imply other large-language model AIs, such as Google's Gemini, Antropic's Claude, or Microsoft's CoPilot, are in any way inferior. No endorsement of ChatGPT is intended.)

ChatGPT suggested a new website design. The new design is shown in the image below, positioned above the existing design:

While we thought the new design offered improvements over the current, we wondered what our users, the folks that actually use our website to find and register for our courses, thought. So we sent out a survey to our public mailing list, which consists of 2,400 users, all of whom have taken at least one of our courses over the past few years. We included the image above so users could see how we were proposing to change the website.

As you can see from the chart below, the 115 users who responded to the survey (thank you!!) overwhelmingly favored the new design.

Additionally, many of you took the time to select what characteristics were most important to you for the new design. The bar chart below summarizes your thoughts. These, along with written comments you provided (see next paragraph), became the design criteria for the new website design.

Many of you also accepted the invitation in the survey to provide comments on the Center for Lifelong Learning or the website. Many of the comments were praise for CLL or its program or people and we appreciate the positive feedback. Listed below are summaries of your major comments specific to the website design and how they are addressed.

• More ways to see available courses - The new course list page, reachable by the Browse Courses link or the Courses menu item, can be sorted chronologically, topically, by day of week, or by instructor.
• Easier to find instructions - New, easier to scan links to registration procedure, mailing list sign-up, and frequently asked questions.
• More white space - White space added. Also, the primary links — Browse Courses, How to Register, and Register Online — are now prominent buttons repeated frequently so they are easier to find.

Some of the comments were about issues related to classes or topics other than website design. We have used your feedback to update our Frequently Asked Questions page or provided a brief answer below.

• Control one student dominating questions during class - Our classroom facilitators are trained to be aware of this. Your feedback is valuable when implementation needs improvement.
• Online courses - We tried simultaneosly "broadcasting" live courses previously. Unfortunately, we need to upgrade our equipment for the online version to meet our standards. Maybe in the future.
• Instructor performance - We work closely with all the instructors to ensure their presentation of the course content is clear and understandable. Sometimes it doesn't work out and we do not schedule that instructor again. Here again, your feedback as students is valuable.

Thank you again for taking the time to complete the survey. We hope you will find the redesigned website is easier to use and more functional than the previous design. You may submit comments at any time to the webmaster.