Multidisciplinary designer solving complex problems with over 10 years of experience, including enterprise SaaS, B2B/B2C, AI startups, remote work, and freelance.
Michael Tsay
UX Design & Research
Duration
2 week design sprint
Tools
Sketchapp
Omnigraffle
Adobe Photoshop CC
OVERVIEW
The goal is aiming to identify opportunities for improvement in UI and navigation with design solutions based on research findings, validations from target users and the use of a primary persona.
Duration : 2 weeks
THE PROCESS
Research & User Interviews
Synthesizing Data
Sketch & Design
User Testing
Iterate & Repeat
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Tyson needs to find a daycare service for his pug Zoe during the day while he’s at work and his daughter is at school because he recently adopted a pug so him and his daughter can enjoy different activities together on weekends.
SOLUTION STATEMENT
By simplifying the overall layout and navigation of the website, it will achieve a more enjoyable experience for your users. This will be true when more applications are filled out along with your management team scheduling more meet and greets.
Primary persona :
RESEARCH
Contextual scenario
Tyson decided to get a dog so he can spend some time with his 12 yo girl. Since he works during the day and she goes to school, he needs to find a daycare service that can be on a schedule during the work week and flexible on weekends for his new dog.
Business goal
The Play Doggie Daycare website needs to be easily navigated by the user to get the information they are seeking. This will increase onboarding for both business locations which will maximize square foot usage as providing daycare is their main product and service.
Competitive analysis
I wanted to see what their competition was doing. So I picked the following businesses :
- Seattle Puppyworks, they are local and daycare is one of their main services
- Downtown Dog Lounge, also local but they have multiple locations in the Seattle metropolitan area
- Woof! Play & Stay, a boutique like location offering spa like treatments for your pet
- Citydog!, has multiple locations throughout the country
I took these businesses and conducted a competitive analysis to basically see what they're doing. I wanted to see what they're websites has to offer, the layout of their sites and what services do they offer.
Heuristic evaluation
With the findings from the competitors research in mind, I wanted to revisit the Play Doggie Daycare website. I conducted a heuristic evaluation and discovered that the opportunities for improvement is the area of layout and information architecture. I want to make it easier for the users to get the information they need from the website.
Card sorting
From the open card sorting, I analyzed the contents within the primary navigation of the website. The closed card sorting helped to determine the order within the steps of how users will look for information from the website. This insight will be helpful when developing the user test script as well as prioritizing contents for the primary navigation of the website.
Contextual research & interview
Before I start sketching out some design concepts, I wanted to see what goes on at a Play Doggie Daycare location. I stopped by the Capitol Hill location to observe customers dropping off and picking up their dogs. I also wanted to see the space and what a daily operation looks like to an employee.
After observing customer interactions and a bunch of happy dogs, I spoke with an employee to talk about what their average day looks like and the application process.
Some key insights:
- The website does not take on transactions
- Most customers reach out by phone to communicate
any changes in their reservations
- The application online is the first step in their
onboarding process. In-person interview with the dog
and owner(s) is the final step.
User flow
After speaking with an employee, I took the information and insights to map out a user flow in comparison to the original user flow.
Redesign flow :
Original flow :
SKETCH
With the card sorting completed and the research findings along with the synthesized data in mind, I started sketching.
WIREFRAMES
I took the sketches and turned my design into a clickable wireframe. I also reverse engineered the original website design into a clickable wireframe prototype.
A / B TESTING
With both versions of the clickable prototypes, I created a A/B user test script. The Tasks given were taken from insights and patterns that were discovered during the research portion.
A/B test results
The users were able to complete all 3 tasks in half the time it took from the original site. For example, finding the phone numbers to both locations took 12 seconds in the redesign versus almost a minute in the original design.
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE
With results and iterations from user testing, I completed the redesign with a clickable prototype. All content was kept from orginal site into the redesign.
RECAP & REFLECTIONS
Results from user testing was overwhelming especially in the area data collected from the screen capture plus voice recording.
Taking the data and translating them into a visual chart was challenging but the payoff was worth it.
Main take-away is that I'm still surprised when users don't do what you think they'll do even when it's expected.
(End of Case Study)