An Analysis of the Cost and Financial Aid Web Presences of Higher Education Institutions in North Carolina Via Usability Testing with First-Generation Students and Family Members

The purpose of this thesis project was to determine how higher education institutions’ websites could be redesigned in order to better communicate the holistic cost of a college education to first-generation college students and their family members. A remote moderated usability study of three North Carolina universities’ websites was conducted with five first-generation college students and one family member of a first-generation college student. The three biggest discoveries from this study are as follows: 1) Participants were largely unaware of the existence of Net Price Calculators but found them very useful once they were made aware. 2) When asked to identify a starting page for determining the affordability of an institution, student participants gravitated to pages that had cost in the title or included a number towards the top of the page. 3) Usability test tasks related to loans were the most challenging tasks for student participants. The results of this study provide evidence to support the need for more research about how higher education institution websites can better communicate loan information to first-generation college students. The study also includes recommendations for improving institutional websites that can be evaluated through further usability testing. A wireframe for a fictional university’s Net Price Calculator output incorporates some of these recommendations.