Communication Analysis of UBC’s Recreation and Programs Website : Final Report
Creators: name: Chung, Terrance
name: Ip, Nelson
name: Uppal, Aneil
name: Choi, Vincent
name: Nguyen, Daniel
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2019

description: INTRODUCTION - In this project we chose to do an audit of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Recreation’s Programs and Classes webpage. We wanted to see if there are any changes students would like to see that could potentially help them in registering for a class. We only targeted students of UBC because we wanted to help them in increasing their overall physical activity. For data collection, we created a survey for the students of UBC that included closed-ended questions of the agreeableness on specific aspects of the website and two open-ended questions for participants own opinion. They will complete the survey via laptop or mobile phone. The responses we receive will be totaled and analyzed to determine recommendations. RESULTS - Based off our survey results, majority of the responses from our participants indicate that they are satisfied with most of the UBC recreation program and classes webpage. Specifically, there was a high to very high level of agreement regarding easy accessibility, appropriate font size/color scheme, clear and concise class descriptions, and the overall presentation of the webpage. Despite this, further improvement can be made in certain areas. For example, we found that many our participants were not satisfied with the clarity in level of difficulty for each program/class and, some users found the webpage difficult to navigate through a mobile device. Our participants also favored the use of more colors in which the inclusion of other colors can make the website even more appealing. DISCUSSION - Based on our results, we have found that many students are satisfied with the effectiveness of UBC’s recreation website. Across all the questions asked, the average response was between “Somewhat Agree” and “Agree”, suggesting that these students are content with the layout and design of the website. However, there are aspects that can certainly be improved to further increase the student’s satisfaction of the website. For example, the difficulty of classes could be made clearer because about one quarter of the students did not agree with the statement about the class difficulty being clear. By making the difficulty levels clearer, students can feel less intimidated by the program or class that they are interested in which can increase the likelihood of their participation. UBC recreation can do this by rewording the main objectives and goals of the programs, which can highlight the social opportunities that become available through participation. Another aspect that be improved is the color scheme of the website, as the results show quite a bit of variation in the survey responses targeting this aspect of the website. Roughly a quarter of the students were either “Neutral” or did not agree with the statement about the color scheme being appealing, which is an incentive to perhaps change or add more color to the website layout. Overall, the results suggest that the UBC students that completed the survey are pleased with the recreation website, but there are some aspects of it that can be improved to enhance not only the level of appeal but hopefully the rates of participation amongst students in the UBC community. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Add videos of classes and more images for each class. 2. Putting the instructor profiles as the same page as the classes they teach. 3. Providing more information on the difficulty level of all programs and classes. 4. Make the website more navigation friendly for mobile device users. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”