Current vs. prospective students : attaining their mental models about navigating university websites by means of card sorting to determine the usability of university websites

The purpose of this research was to establish whether university websites should implement multiple mental models into their information architecture to ensure usability for multiple user groups. This argument was made as previous literature explained that an information architecture based on the mental models of a website's users allows for intuitive searching, and that the ability to seek information intuitively increases a user’s perception of the usability of that website. To achieve this goal, the mental models of two different user groups of university websites had to be obtained, enabling the determination of whether the mental models of different user groups vary in relation to the same concept. This study chose the population of current students and the population of prospective students as their target groups, as they represented the main user groups of university websites. To elicit the mental models of these recruited sample groups, the method of card sorting was used, creating an open digital card sorting, and analysing the results using multiple matrix analyses. In general, three main differences were established between the two mental models, indicating that universities indeed must implement two different information architectures to provide both user groups with the required usability.