Portfolio

Challenge

Our team was tasked with creating a wholistic user experience by merging three separate websites, and further optimizing the mobile experience.

We saw this as an opportunity to:

• Complete a site content audit
• Evaluate the functionality and figure out what was missing
• Perform user research to deepen our understanding

Project overview and timeline

We conducted thorough research using design thinking methodology to understand the current environment and user needs.

I had already introduced user research to internal groups while working on refreshing the employee intranet information architecture. This helped pave the way to spend the first half of the project gathering data, user testing and collaborating.

Core work was completed collaboratively with:

• research,
• content and marketing,
• measurement, performance and analytics,
• visual design,
• copy writers,
• subject matter experts,
• several IT groups, and
• SEO consultant.

2020-2021: Research to understand

• Tree tested existing information architecture of SRPnet.com.
• Card sort completed and findings shared with internal stakeholders.
• New information architecture developed using research findings and in collaboration with internal stakeholders and SEO consultants.
• Content audit of all three sites (709 pages) and evaluation using website analytics and SEO data.
• Tree tested new architecture.
• We user tested two versions of high fidelity prototypes, making sure to test the removal of legacy features.
• Piloted testing with Spanish language users by performing a first click test.

Building understanding

The result of our initial testing showed us that architecture and menu design was no longer serving our users.

• Prospective customers had the most difficulty locating topics.
• Long time customers more often knew where to go, but we were seeing a substantial increase in new customers and needed to make sure the site was navigable by all segments.

UI design elements

After finalizing the information architecture, the mobile first visual design was developed. We focused on:

• Expanding the number of quick access tasks available on the home page.
• Removing elments that had historically performed poorly and hiddden content such as a home page carousel.
• Added on page navigation elements to reduce users cognitive load.
• Aligning high priority content to buisness goals and users tasks by core modeling pages.
• Compliance with WCAG 2.1 at a AA level .

Materializing: Testing our designs

User testing provided us the data needed to finalize the design and support it as we presented it to stakeholders and for approval. We performed a tree test and created high-fidelity prototypes for user testing.

We found that:

• Overall navigation and task completion was relatively high among both desktop and mobile prototypes. 
• New language toggle functionality was easily found and customers noted its inclusivity. 
• Both user groups were complimentary of updated price plan comparison charts designed to reduce cognitive load. 
• On page navigation was utilized and users commented it made it easier to navigate the more robust content pages. 

Project Outcomes

The website was launched in July 2022. An extensive evaluation of customer satisfaction and analytics monitoring began shortly after.

• We saw a 9% increase in customer satisfaction four months after launch. The most significant growth seen in these scores since they began tracking in 2009.
• Anecdotally, we’ve received positive feedback from internal partners and some customer complaints about the change (as expected). 
• Analytics showed us lower bounce rates and a higher time spent on site when compared to the same time period in 2021.

Artifacts

The following were created for the project but most are proprietary and therefore not displayed. See example artifacts below.

• Visual information architecture diagram created using Mural.
• Content Frames/Core Model documents.
• Wireframes – both low and high fidelity.
• Web form technical specifications that included: form hosting, back end database connections, roles/responsibilities for any APIs, user profiles, form field validation and low fidelity wireframes.
• Functional requirements list to provide to vendors for customization of new system. 
• Page and form inventories.

Program Sign-up Improvements | 2019 – 2020

SRP

Challenge

Salt River Project sought to improve their online application process for a long-standing program. My task was to streamline the procedure and reduce the processing time, as delays were causing customer compensation checks to be issued late.

Attempt 1

Understanding

I began by having informational interviews with the program manager, business analyst and developer. From these conversations I was able to gain insights into the complete process flow and identify potential pain points for users.

Exploring

I redesigned the application’s form to make it easier for users by showing them only the fields they need to fill out, step by step.

I created low-fidelity wireframes and written specifications to gain necessary approvals. The documentation was then passed to the developer.

Materialize

Soon after launch a significant bug was found. Analytics showed that 83% of users reached page two of the four-part form. At that point, the success rate dropped to 7%.

Due to the short duration of the program application period (only three months), the decision was made to leave it as is.

Attempt 2: Success!

At this point, I had a solid understanding of the program, the user experience issues, and the business goals and needs. However, fixing the bug was complicated by both resource limitations and additional requirements being added.

Exploring

I began making contact with different teams to investigate the software options that our company already had.

Ideating

• I first worked collaboratively with the research team to have a service blue print created.
• I then developed detailed user stories. 
• Once we identified a possible solution (DocuSign) I created a wireflow to connect the web experience to DocuSign.

Materializing

The combination of a web form plus DocuSign Powerform was successful.

Additional benefits included:

• Through the use of DocuSign, we were able to enhance the accuracy and reliability of our data.
• Collaborating more closely with our IT teams allowed us to optimize our resource management, leading to a decrease in labor costs year over year.
• We achieved our primary objective of reducing processing time by promoting the submission of applications online.