Using inputs from my colleague and the client, I created a project plan that allocated enough time for our team to perform detailed research, define target users, and design a prototype that could be tested within our 3 weeks timeline.
Having to split interview responsibilities with my colleague to gather as much information information as possible, I was responsible for leading 6 of the 12 user interviews in addition to preparing and conducting the task analyses.
I defined the framework for the product's features based on the research data collected, as well as the level of development effort and the company's buy-in.
Using my background in data analytics, I redesigned the existing product's dashboards, a key selling point to presenters, to tell a more compelling story.
I designed user/task flows, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and a component library ready for handoff to the business for desktop devices while collaborating with my colleague who focused on mobile devices.
Working with the co-founders of the product and company, I was responsible for communicating design decisions and market strategy backed by our team's research.
Project Constraints
To better understand customer's shopping habits and identify any pain points, I shared Phidippides' website with six participants who had previously purchased running or exercise gear online in the past year. Three themes emerged as the data was assessed.
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We opted to spend roughly a third of our time focusing on user research with the understanding we would likely sacrifice the quantity of high fidelity wireframes and prototypes that could be designed. For the first week, we spent 6-8 hours a day interviewing presenters and audience members and synthesizing the data to identify common needs, wants, and pain points.
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Being a young startup, SlideTech’s development team wasn’t looking to build a video conferencing or presentation software competitor, but rather a lightweight platform that they could get into their users hands quickly. We had to design within the bandwidth of the development resources available while delicately balancing the business goals with its users' needs.
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Getting users to introduce a new piece of technology to their presentation workflow proved to be an uphill climb. The idea of familiarizing with and using a new product was met with resistance because the current solutions worked “just fine.”
The Personas
Because the product engages both presenters and their audiences, two user types were expected from the outset. However, our research suggested further segmenting these user types into into four personas would best address our target audience's wants and needs.
Presenters
Minimalists keep visual content to a minimum to avoid distractions. These users are set in their ways and enjoy structured presentations that are easy to follow. Minimalist’s presentations tend to be conversational, so it’s easy to tweak presentation materials they’ve used before. While these users can be extremely tech savvy, they are usually late to adopt new technologies to avoid disturbing their workflow.
Engagers presentations are often adapted on the fly based on audience reaction. Audiences will be kept on their toes and encouraged to participate throughout the presentation. Presentations are often filled with video and audio clips. These users frequently ask their audiences questions and launch polls to gauge the crowd's interest. Engagers are incredibly tech savvy and are more willing to adopt new technologies early.
Audience
“Achievers” take advantage of most tools made available to them. If presentations are recorded, these users often spend their time listening and absorbing information during the presentation, knowing they can revisit details in the recording. You can expect these users to be among the first to use tools and features that encourage interaction and learning.
“Passive Listeners” often join presentations as a requirement. While these audience members tend to avoid openly interacting and contributing to the discussion, they desire a captivating presentation. You can occasionally convince Passive Listeners to engage in polls or open questions, but more often than not, these users will be listening from afar and possibly multitasking.
Insights from Research
Over the course of 12 user interviews, task analyses, and detailed market research, we consolidated the information into the following core concepts that served as the foundation for SlideTech’s minimum viable product.
We found presenters were mostly comfortable with their current presentation setup. The tools work as expected and can be used similarly regardless if the presentation is virtual or in person. Any benefits that SlideTech could provide would have to greatly outweigh the cost of learning the new tool. This concept is what our team referred to as minimizing the “Experience Cost”.
Presenters agreed one of the biggest needs during presentations is getting their audience to act on their call to action. Whether it’s responding to a question, directing the audience to a website, or connecting with potential clients during a sales pitch, the current offerings didn't readily provide this and often left presenters unsure about their meeting's effectiveness.
Presenters and audience members admitted to easily being distracted during presentations. The live analytics showing audience attention in SlideTech 1.0 was a common distraction for presenters.
Our research showed most audience members take and keep their notes in one or two programs, or skip taking notes all together. Keeping the built-in notebook capability didn't address the audience's top needs and added unnecessary complications to their user flow.
In our discussions we found that participants preferred simple layouts for analytics whose context could be inferred quickly. Despite providing dozens of data points, SlideTech 1.0's analytics page was rarely able to provide presenters with any relevant takeaways.
Ideation + MVP Feature Prioritization
As we wrapped up our research, the vision for SlideTech’s MVP began taking shape. This needed to be a product designed for its users' needs instead of relying on past hunches. Its value would be driven from its core capabilities and make presenters feel comfortable using them.
Presentations can be stressful enough as is, so it was a priority to make the experience comfortable and familiar while providing valuable insights for its users.
Our team likened the removal of features from SlideTech 1.0 to a chef reducing a sauce. We had to remove the extra substance to provide its users with the features they needed and that differentiated the company from its competitors.
"Any benefits that SlideTech could provide would have to outweigh the cost of learning the new tool. Users needed incentive to replace a solution that works "just fine".
The SlideTech MVP
The Analytics component required significant attention because of the impact of our upstream design decisions. Presentation analytics were often skewed during longer presentations because breaks weren’t accounted for in the product’s data collection. Adding a new "Pause/Break" state allows presenters to easily pause and resume a presentation without having to relaunch the presentation and offers significantly more accurate analytics.
Wrapping Up
At the conclusion of our engagement with SlideTech, we were able to hand over the deliverables, hold a project debrief to discuss next steps for the product, and receive feedback from the co-founders on our performance. Despite not being able to accomplish everything we set out to do in three weeks, we always made sure our client was informed of our progress and what we were going to be able to hand over at project closure.
SlideTech provided our team with a heuristics assessment, which identified everything from cosmetic issues to major usability problems. The company will also receive a detailed report on their target audience, which will inform their future product development. Finally, we provided a design file with an interactive prototype and component library that may be used to test our design hypothesis as well as any design work going forward.
Due to time constraints, our team provided a framework for conducting usability testing and best practices in lieu of conducting the sessions ourselves. We continued to emphasize minimizing use of leading or suggestive language to prevent inaccurate conclusions about the product's usability. We were able to demonstrate this approach during the task analyses that were carried out earlier in the research phase of the project.
As a part of our journeys to becoming full time UX Designers, we were keen on hearing our clients’ feedback. In the same vein as all design work, our team always has room for improvement on how we manage our client relationships, handle project constraints, and how we communicate and execute our design decisions.
What I've learned
I took time after the conclusion of the project to reflect on what I thought went well and what could be improved going forward. Although every project is different, I believe there was plenty I could take away and apply on future designs from my time at SlideTech.
We sometimes struggled to avoid our own biases creeping into the design decisions after SlideTech explained its vision for its redesigned MVP early in the project. Often, we had to pause and ask if we were pleasing our client or really embracing what our research was telling us.
In the end, we delivered a user-centered design, but if we had challenged each other's design decisions with more rigor and communicated those to our stakeholders earlier, we might have reached our final design decisions with enough time remaining to test our hypothesis.
I am extremely proud of our team’s efforts in redesigning SlideTech’s MVP. After presenting our designs with SlideTech's co-founders and discussing the rationale behind our decisions, I could feel a sense of their confidence growing because they were able to see how the new designs were derived from empirical data.
I believe a large amount of our success can be attributed to our candidness with the client. Although our recommendations didn't always match their expectations, we earned their trust because they were based on evidence and best practices. I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with SlideTech and I look forward to seeing the product evolve.
Remaining competitive in the era of online shopping and e-commerce giants is something local stores dealt with for years. The spread of COVID-19 forced many of these stores to suddenly rely on websites that weren’t designed to evoke their in-store experiences, let alone be the primary source of sales.
This is my story of redesigning Phidippides’ website to bring their renowned running specialists and friendly neighborhood service directly to their customer’s digital devices.
A Local Favorite
A specialty local running store in Atlanta, GA, Phidippides has been serving its customers loyally since its establishment in 1972. It has remained a staple of Atlanta's running community through its offerings of incredibly knowledgeable staff, best in class service, and unique training events throughout the year.
Their current website was set up by a company that specializes in ecommerce platforms for local running retailers and has worked with several other business in the Atlanta Metro Area. While it's a great step in establishing an online presence, the similarities to its competitors' websites were hard to overlook, as were key usability components of the site.
Website Similarities
Inspiration
This project was inspired by an assignment I received while I was enrolled in General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive (UXDI) course in May 2021. Despite the project's focus being the redesign of a local ecommerce website, with an emphasis on site mapping, information architecture, and desktop design, my personal aim was to help bridge the gap between Phidippides' in-store experience their customers rave about and their online experience.
As this was an individual project, I was responsible for all aspects of the redesign process covered in this case study.
Goals & Discoveries
To ensure my efforts were focused on the site's main usability concerns, I sought out six participants who had shopped online for running or exercise gear in the past year. I had two primary goals entering these discussions. First, I wanted to know who Phidippides' target online audience was and how they shop online for athletic apparel and running gear. Second, I was curious to find out if Phidippides' current website met their expectations.
Customers often read reviews, browsed search engine results, and even looked up the aggregated ratings on large e-commerce websites to research a product before purchasing it.
Participants were overwhelmed by the number of product categories on Phidippides' website. Instead of using filters, participants either searched for a specific item or browsed products in using high level categories such as gender or apparel.
Customers expect online stores to provide personalized experiences and recommend products based on their needs.
"I like having a consultation with a specialists when I'm buying shoes. It makes me feel more confident in my decision"
After seeing positive reviews on Runner's World, I use Google or Amazon to see what other buyers say.
I normally start my searches with a familiar shoe brand or product category that I'm interested in.
The Personas
Based on the insights discovered through research, two personas were created to best represent Phidippides' key customer segments. They represented experienced runners and newcomers looking to get into the sport.
User flows were created for each persona based on how and why these types of customers buy shoes and athletic apparel.
Persona User Flows
Site Map
After wrapping up research and summarizing key insights, the next step was to build a site map. The 'Shoe Review' and 'Fitting' pages were given special attention during the website redesign. Originally, these pages contained largely static content and acted simply as informational resources from which no action could be taken.
The redesign aims to simplify shoe searching for both personas and enables them to find shoes in ways that are easy and comfortable for them. In building out the features of these pages, I aimed to reduce the gap between what customers experience in Phidippides' store and what they encounter on their website.
The 'Fitting' page now includes an immersive Shoe Quiz that guides the customer through a series of questions they could expect to receive from an associate in the store and allows them to make purchases directly from the recommendations page.
The 'Shoe Reviews' page moves away from a blog-style layout that required customers to recall which shoe model they searched for on a separate online store page, to a modern layout that enables customers to purchase shoes directly from the review page. By reducing the steps the customer must take from when they make a purchase decision to when they submit their order, the user experience is improved while the store's online sales can expect to increase.
Areas of Focus
In order to recreate Phidippides' in-store experience online, I had to draw insights from my research. Focusing on the customer's pain points, shopping habits, and needs, I prioritized four aspects for the first iteration of the website redesign.
More than ever before, customers expect experiences that cater to their needs. Using Phidippides shoe fitting data, creating a unique and personalized customer journey can be made possible through the gamification of the shoe finding process using an online quiz.
Using data gathered by participants, card sorting uncovered new and simpler ways to nest categories from what used to be an overwhelming set of filters. This helps reduce distractions and simplify navigation, all while keeping the number of clicks to a minimum.
It was important to highlight Phidippides' expert advice as a differentiator from other local running stores and larger e-commerce competitors. Getting this information in front of customers quickly and easily will help them make a confident purchasing decision.
Users often noted that Phidippides' website looked outdated. I wanted to embrace and build on Phidippides’ rich history and involvement in Atlanta’s running community, while modernizing its e-commerce platform and bringing it to the 21st century to better meet its customers' expectations.
Wireframes
After multiple rounds of sketches were shared with participants, the next step was to get into the design software and work my way from low to high fidelity wireframes.
A Modern Take on History
It was evident that some level of rebranding could be implemented to bring newfound excitement to the website, after showing it to runners in the area who were familiar with both the store and their products. The goal was to embrace and build on Phidippides' rich history and involvement in the Atlanta running community while modernizing its e-commerce platform and bringing it into the 21st century.
Using retro-inspired elements with a modern twist, I created a mood board for the brand's new look and feel. To address the difficulty its customers encountered reading text on Phidippides' current website, an emphasis was placed on higher contrast between background and text colors.
High-Fidelity Prototypes
High Fidelity interactive prototypes for both user flows were created to ensure proper usability testing could be conducted.
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User Feedback
Users found both of the newly added features (the 'Shoe Finder' quiz and the link to shop directly from the 'Shoe Reviews' page) to be intuitive and in line with their expectations. 100% of the participants were able to complete both tasks (see below) with minimal deviations in the flow, which were designed to best simulate the targeted persona's journeys.
Improvements
Dismissing the shopping cart pop-up caused issues with 66% of users. Allowing users to navigate directly to the shopping cart page from the pop-up has been prioritized to address the issue.
30% of users were confused about the difference between the expert shoe reviews and customer shoe reviews. Additional focus on copywriting and A/B testing will be addressed in upcoming sprints.
Additionally, further refinement of the recommended products feature, product landing pages for other SKUs such as apparel and training, and shopping cart refinement have been added as future improvements
