MY ROLE:
UX Designer
UX Researcher
CONSTRAINTS:
2 Week Design Sprint
TOOLS:
Figma
Miro
Airtable
GOALS:
Recover users from the %75 drop off rate at Step 1 in the Listing Process.
What if clarity was the only thing holding you back from accomplishing your goals?
Point Info Landing Page
Process of selecting specific resort to look up point information.
Selected Resort page.
Resort specific point information page.
01. THE CHALLENGE
"What was the root problem for KOALA?"
KOALA was seeing 75% of users leave after starting Step 1. in the Listing Process.
In order for us to be able to help KOALA, we needed to get to the root of the problem. We conducted research which lended itself to providing some key insights into user's problems.
Data Gathering and the story of Owen
User Interviews - We conducted user interviews in order to understand how users might think while operating KOALA.
Usability Tests - We conducted usability tests to understand where the site was currently failing users.
Market Research - We decided to do a competitive and comparative analysis against the likes of VRBO, AirBnB and RedWeek to see how KOALA stacked up.
All the data we gathered was converted into insights. These insights were then converted into our persona, Owen.
Below are the screens Owen found himself confused on during his listing journey with KOALA based on our research.
Step 1 of the listing process had a few issues:
- It didn't let the user know what they need to know at this point in their listing journey.
- The language wasn't meeting user's mental models or vocabulary, leading to confusion
Things didn't get much better further down the page. By the time Owen got to the last question, he was throughly confused.
Step 1 of the Listing Process confused users on what was expected of them. The language of "Reserved Time" and "Reservation Number" left many users frustrated at not being able to understand what was asked of them.
The phraising of questions also confused users in that they wouldn't know if they needed to enter a personal name or the name of the resort from which they were listing their property.
ASSUMPTION: Fixing the site's broken taxonomy will solve KOALA's problem of user drop off.
However, as we began looking over the current site user flow together as a team, we noticed a correlation between a break in the user flow and when users mentioned they were confused.
The flow has a clear break point if the user doesn't have a reservation number.
If the user is lacking a reservation number, they are kicked from the flow at this point, and don't know where to begin in finding this information.
Upon reflecting on the persona and the information we had gathered from the research, we realized there was a large issue facing Owen. This issue was a lack of clarity.
02. IDEATION
"How might we provide clarity?"
As the team approached possible ideations, we knew one thing for certain: We were missing Step 0.
STEP 0
KOALA had Step 1 done, but if their users weren't prepared, it was not clear where to go. As a team, we decided Step 0 was our proposed solution to the problem. But what does Step 0 look like?
Owen needed clarity. With this in mind, I went into sketching. I began asking myself "How Might We" questions to help me ideate.
The first page was imagined to give Owen a possible "At A Glance" view of how time share points in general operate.
The second page was made show Owen some specific things points can do at specific resorts.
The third sketch was to show what a potential concierge help page could resemble, helping keep Owen on the line with KOALA, and not going to a competitor.
These sketches were then adapted into Mid Fidelity wireframes.
The thought here was to provide visual assets in order to fit in line with the rest KOALA's very visual design language.
The drop down bar was a reoccurring design pattern for users of KOALA and felt natural on this page.
Owen would be ready to go once he had selected his resort, while also allowing him to suggest a resort if not available.
The jump from Sketches to Mid-Fidelity was large, but I felt confident I was on the right path. However, there were still some major issues in my design.
NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS
- Owen could be confused and believe he is in the listing process still since the top nav bar still says he is in Step 1.
- The current Mid-Fi wireframes didn't follow a specific design pattern already established from previous pages, but was loosely inspired by the site overall.
- I still hadn't nailed down what page Owen would be directed to once he had selected a resort.
HIGH-FIDELITY
These High-Fidelity frames display my attempt to provide clarity to Owen. They were design with thoughtfulness in mind towards Owen being able to quickly figure out what he did not know and guide him on how to gain knowledge.
The inspiration for the bottom half of the main pages for the new point information page. This sectional lockup is featured on the main page prominently, and following its pattern allowed me to establish Consistency and Standards within my mock ups.
Owen can select his resort in order to get more information on how points specifically operate at his time-share.
Owen can also see that he is no longer in the listing process as the nave bar has disappeared and is replaced by a "Back to Listing Process" button.
Once Owen has selected his resort, the continue button dynamically activates in response to his selection.
The decision was made to have Owen interact with the webpage as much as possible, as to provide a sense of propulsion and clarity of focusing on a singular task, instead of overwhelming with information.
This page shows specifically what points do at Owen's resort. Icons were used along side text to provide a scannable overview.
Owen can also choose to select the Point Manual linked to the resort's website in order to see a more detailed view.
Apple Maps was chosen to display the location of the resort, to provide visual confirmation to Owen that he had the right resort selected. Apple Maps was chosen over Google Maps as Apple is more commonly associated with privacy.
If Owen still didn't know what to do, he may select the "Call Concierge" button.
Owen receives a pop up once he selects the "Concierge" button.
I wanted to encourage Owen to reach out to KOALA for their service, and not necessarily feel redirected to a different company's customer service, thus KOALA is front and center.
All of these design decisions were seen through the lens of providing clarity.
03. SUMMARY
"What did I learn? What's next?"
Overall, this project proved to be quite enjoyable and challenging. The long term effects of our implementation has yet to be seen but we expect for the 75% drop off rate to slowly disappear.
WHAT I LEARNED
- I learned the value of team work and collaboration, as it took all of us to realize that the real issues was a lack of clarity in the user flow, not taxonomy.
- I learned that user flows can be critical in a user's problem space, and that they can often appear to be other problems like taxonomy.
- I also learned that a large scale problem can often be tracked down to a specific point in a user's journey. Instead of rebuilding everything, focus on the specific point of pain.
WHAT'S NEXT
If given the chance to continue working on this project, I would:
- Conduct User Tests. (Our limited number of tests need to be vetted and expanded upon.)
- Continue to analyze the overall user flow, honing in on other potential breaking points.