How might be encourage potential customers to make the first point of contact regarding therapy for their child?
💻 View the full demo
The Process
🧪 Testing
Project Overview
Background
POTS is a pediatric therapy practice that offers occupational, physical, speech and feeding therapy to babies and children ages 0-18. They have a website currently hosted on Wix, but have been questioning how effective it is in bringing in paying patients.
The User Problem
The user’s main goals - speaking to a therapist on the phone, reading reviews, and understanding how therapy sessions work and what the therapists are like - are not easy to achieve on the current POTS website.
The Business Problem
Plenty of people appear to be using the POTS website, but a very small percentage of them actually inquire about signing their child up for therapy.
The Solution
A website redesign focused on the following elements:
1️⃣ Making the call-to-action for booking a free consultation button more prominent throughout the site, and making it easier for users to find basic contact information so that they can easily get in touch.
2️⃣ Adding a video that will showcase what the therapy sessions and therapists are like, so that parents can understand more about therapy and feel confident in the therapists.
3️⃣ Replacing the dense testimonials section on the landing page with a Google Reviews widget to enable parents to more easily hear from others about their experiences.
🔍 Understanding the Problem
The research phase of this project was crucial, since though the client has gone through multiple website designs and does plenty of digital marketing, they had never done research on how parents decide on a therapist for their child. This made the research phase - especially the user interviews - particularly important.
1. Analyzing the current situation
Before talking to users, I harnessed the data and information already available to me to gain some insight into the current conversion rates, site analytics and site usability.
2. Hearing from users
I interviewed 7 participants, all of whom are mothers of young children in therapy, over Zoom.
I recorded all of the insights from the interviews in Figjam, and then categorized them based on common themes.
Main Insights:
🔗 You can view the complete research synthesis here.
🎯 Defining and Refining the Solution
Armed with fascinating insights from users as well as analysis of the current website, I turned to strategizing about how to translate the users’ needs into a solution.
1. Pinpointing Goals
In order to focus on a solution that serves both the user and the business, I mapped out user goals, business goals and technical constraints.
🔗 You can view the goals in more detail here.
2. User Flow
After taking stock of the mutual user and business goals, I decided to focus my redesign on a flow in which a user enters the website in order to learn a little bit about the therapy that the practice offers, and then wants to contact the practice to discuss further.
Here is a snapshot of part of the flow:
🔗 You can view the user flow in more detail here.
3. Feature Roadmap & Priority Matrix
I then focused on translating the user and business needs into features and prioritizing what to design first based on impact and feasibility.
🔗 You can view the roadmap here.
Based on the priority matrix, my immediate goals were:
- Make the free consultation booking CTA a lot more prominent
- Improve the testimonials section
- Improve the placement and UI of the contact information throughout the site
- Add video clips that show off the therapy sessions and the therapists
- Make general improvements - color, hierarchy, layout etc.
- Ensure that the website was responsive for mobile
🎨 Designing
With my user insights and business needs pinpointed and my features prioritized, it was time to get cracking on the layout and visual design for the website.
Mid-Fi Wireframes
I sketched out options for each screen on both desktop and mobile, and then digitized the top few options. With some feedback from other designers, I decided which screens to run with and what needed work, and then iterated on my original wires.
🔗You can view all four screens in more detail here.
UI Kit
I then worked on creating a UI kit with all of the visual design elements for the wireframes.
🔗 You can view the UI kit in more detail here.
High-Fi Wireframes & Prototype
I then added in those UI elements along with some layout changes, and created a prototype with the basic interactions needed to test my designs on real users.
🔗 You can view the first version of the high-fi designs up close here.
🧪 Testing
Now I wanted to see how my designs faired when real users interacted with them. I performed moderated usability testing over zoom, with users interacting with the prototype I had created.
The Insights:
🔗 You can view the results and client feedback in more detail here.
🔄 Iterating
Once I synthesized and analyzed the results of the usability testing, it was time to make some revisions.
Prioritization Matrix
I prioritized the revisions I wanted to make based on impact on the user and feasibility from a design perspective.
🔗 You can view the priority matrix in more detail here.
Iterations
1. Testimonials Reviews
In order to ensure that the users were able to access unbiased reviews about the business while still remaining on the website AND save engineering and design costs, I replaced the testimonials section with a Google Reviews widget.
2. Adjusting the Hero Section
In order to mitigate confusion about the acronym and make it easier for users to understand the business’s purpose, I modified the logo and the hero section.
3. Dated yellow Cheerful aqua
The dated yellow had to go, so I swapped it for an aqua color that more accurately portrays the feel the business is going for - playful and fun, while still professional.
💻 View the full demo
👓 Planning and Reflecting
🚧 This design is in the process of being implemented. The client has decided to keep their site on the Wix platform, so this design will be implemented as well as it can be considering the limitations of Wix.
Next Steps
- Test the revisions on users, and iterate based on those results.
- Expand the redesign to all of the screens on the website.
Lessons Learned
Other than the challenges and lessons I mentioned above (check out those gray boxes above), here are some of the highlights of this project from a growth perspective:
Communicating with the client
“Penina was a pleasure to work with. She took the time to really understand my business’s needs at the beginning of the project, kept me updated on her progress, and got the project done in a timely manner. She explained her thought process each time she presented me with what she had designed, and was constantly open to hearing my feedback as the client.” (Chaye, POTS Director)
One of the challenges I faced during this project was effectively communicating with the client during the design process. This experience taught me that the designer-client relationship is critical not only to creating a pleasant work environment, but also to the outcomes and ultimate quality of the project.
Fixating on solutions needs
One of the “lightbulb” moments during this project was the importance of fixating on the user’s needs and keeping those at the center of the design process. Once I moved away from focusing on a specific solution and really honed in on the user’s needs and motivations, I was able to come up with a much better way to address those needs.