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🏅 Stanley Caplan Category Excellence Award- Human Factors & Ergonomics Society (HFES)
How I validated a large-scale information architecture redesign for 1.9M+ Texas educators.
Role
Timeline
UX Researcher
March 2025
Methods
Moderated usability testing, Think-aloud protocol, SUS, Task analysis, Statistical analysis
About Texas Teacher Retirement System
The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) serves over 1.9 million active and retired educators across the state. Members depend on the website to access critical information and complete important tasks related to retirement, healthcare, and account management.
Common tasks include:
Estimating retirement benefits
Updating Personal Information
Healthcare Coverage Info
Register for Health Events
Support and Contact Resources
However, earlier research that we did on the legacy TRS website uncovered several usability challenges. Users often struggled to find information due to confusing navigation, unclear content organization, and difficulty locating key resources.
To address these issues, we redesigned the website's information architecture, navigation, and content structure with the goal of making information easier to find and reducing user effort.
Research Goal
Following the redesign, our team conducted a comparative usability study to evaluate whether the new experience successfully resolved the issues identified in the original website.
Using an A/B testing approach, we compared the legacy and redesigned websites across a series of real-world tasks.
We measured:
01
Task Success
Could users find what they needed?
02
Time on Task
How quickly could they complete tasks?
03
User Satisfaction
How usable did the experience feel?
The goal was to determine whether the redesign improved the website's effectiveness, efficiency, and overall user experience for Texas educators.
Method
Legacy website
Existing experience
Moderated usability study
Group A (n=12)•
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Moderated usability study Group A (n=12)•
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Identified navigation issues
-
Information architecture problems
-
Findability challenge
Website Redesign
-
Restructured navigation
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Simplified content hierarchy
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Improved information architecture
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Better content organization
Moderated usability study
Group A (n=12)•
-
Tested redesigned experience
-
Task success
-
Completion time
-
Satisfaction (SUS)
Tasks
82%
Task Success
95%
Task 2
Find educational videos
Task 3
Find annuity payment schedule
Task 1
Find educational videos
Task 3
Learn about healthcare coverage
Task 5
Update address
Task 7
Estimate retirement benefits
Task 2
Register for retirement presentation
Task 4
Register for health event
Task 6
Contact Ombuds Office
Task 8
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