UX Designer (solo project)
KiwiCo Unsolicited Site Redesign
Users
Parents with school-age children and young adults
Tools
Pen & Paper
Miro
Whimsical
Sketch
InVision
Scope
3 weeks from discovery to hifi mock-up
Process
Research plan
Research interviews
Usability plan
Usability tests
C & C analysis
Card sorting
Personas
Task flows
User flows
Sitemap
Sketches
Mid-fi prototype
Usability tests
Hi-fi prototype
Summary
As a former teacher and now a parent, I empathize with the struggle that parents and students are experiencing with remote learning. My user research revealed that parents need high-quality, appropriately targeted supplemental content for their children.
Through competitive research, I discovered the KiwiCo, a site offering supplemental content. I performed usability testing to better understand the parents' experience as they navigate the site. The results revealed pain points that inspired the redesign to improve the shopping experience for parents during this stressful time.
Discover
Exploring KiwiCo Site
I started by reviewing the current site and researching their business goals. KiwiCo provides parents with award-winning, hands-on projects and activities designed by experts with feedback from children.
Goals
1. Inspire the next generation of innovators
2. Increase sales of products and crates
Discover
Uncovering Parents' Needs
I created a user research and usability plan considering the challenges that remote testing presented. Once I collected my parent user research interview data, I analyzed and synthesized through affinity mapping. The user research revealed that parents were worried that their child was falling behind while learning remotely. They shared their time-consuming journey to search for high-quality content and apps by visiting many different web sites and apps.
Main Trends
I want high-quality supplemental content that will help my child not get behind during the pandemic.
I value different types of engaging content so that I can captivate my child's attention so that I can get my work done at the same time.
Discover
Assessing Usability of Current Site
I performed usability tests to determine how the parents responded to the current information architecture, microcopy, ontology, and how the overall user interface helped parents to complete their search and purchase user flow.
100% of the parents thought that the KiwiCo only offered subscription crates
Findings
They relied on reviews to validate the quality of the purchase, and commented on their absence during the search.
100% of parents were not interested in committing to a subscription crate at the time of the test.
The parents wanted to easily find content to work on specific academic skills.
Define
Creating Personas to Focus Designs
My user research and usability testing helped me to understand my users. I used this information to develop personas and journey maps so that could clearly define the users and focus on their needs when redesigning the website.
Primary Persona
Secondary Persona
Define
Pondering the Problem
My user research and usability testing helped me to understand my users. I used this information to develop personas and journey maps so that could clearly define the users and focus on their needs when redesigning the web site.
Problem
Parents need a quick way to find high-quality, appropriate supplemental content that keeps their child engrossed in learning because schools are struggling to provide the same level rigor and engagement during remote learning.
How might we?
How might we help parents find content faster?
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age/ skills labeled on product thumbnail
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Improve search process by moving search front and center
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Encourage membership so the age of child and skills are shared in onboarding
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Filtering options exposed at top of search
How might we make parents feel more comfortable buying the materials ?
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Show customer reviews from search page
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Show learning topics and skills met with each project
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Share the topics covered in months ahead in the crates
Solution
My solution is to improve upon an existing web site that provides parents with supplemental content by making it easy to locate materials for their child’s age and learning topic. It will show the reviews and show more details about what topics and skills are covered with each project.
Define
Streamlining task flow for busy parents
Next, I thought about what the potential user flow would be given the user goals and personas.
Maxwell Primary persona's task flow
Zoe Secondary Persona's Task Flow
Design
Sketching Filtering Systems
Once I had a clear idea of the task flow and had brainstormed multiple How might we solutions, I sketched multiple versions of the filtering system as I knew that this would be a key feature in supporting Maxwell and Zoe as they searched for targeted content.
Design
Redefining the Call to Action
My usability tests showed that parents thought that the company only sold crates and were hesitant to commit to a crate. I suggest making the Call to Action on the home page "Join Us". Through a short onboarding to gather user data like the age and the desired learning, the company could provide its customers a streamlined path to getting targeted projects for their kids.
Potential Benefits to Parents
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Increase conversions
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Increase sales and Return on Investment
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Access to additional free content
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Inform product design
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Improve Search Engine Optimization
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targeted products in portal and sent to email
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speedy checkout saved secure payment process
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reduced member prices
Potential Benefits to KiwiCo
Design
Searching Strategically
Based on usability testing, I reconfigured the home page since parents were not able to quickly locate the content that they needed at their child’s age level. I iterated my designs to reduce the mental load and the time spent completing each task. By revealing the filtering drop-downs, users were able to quickly locate the filtering option or options that met their needs.
Design
Shortcut to Content for Members
Not only will increasing memberships better inform the direction for the company, but it could provide busy parents like Maxwell with specific content available in his portal skipping searching process altogether. Simplifying this process for Maxwell and other parents will honor their time and if the content continues to grow, entice them to come back to their personalized portal to order projects that will help build their child's knowledge and skills.
Prototype
Desktop and Mobile Prototype
While the usability testing was performed on desktop, all users indicated that they shop via their mobile phone as well as their desktop. As a result, I created a desktop and mobile prototype to meet both scenarios.
