Case Study
Startup Company
Implemented user experience principles and techniques to streamline the customer journey to encourage signups.
Role
UX – UI Designer
Visual Designer
Developer
Design tool kit
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Technology stack
WordPress
Acuity
Stripe
Background
Companion Matters is a local startup that aims to help seniors and persons with disabilities stay connected with their loved ones.
They needed a solution where people can learn how the service work, select a package based on individual needs and desired level of contact, schedule the frequency of the calls, and set up a one-time payment or a recurring payment plan with a subscription.
Industry
Seniors citizens, baby boomers & persons with disabilities.
Channel
B2C
For this project, I performed user research and competitor analysis, created user flows and wireframes, designed user interfaces, integrated scheduling capabilities, and a payment gateway.
I utilized a 6-stage design thinking model. The stages of the design thinking process are as follows:
- Discover
- Define
- Design
- Prototype
- Test
- Implement
Discover
First, I focused on figuring out a research strategy.
By conducting a usability test, and interviewing people who fit our user personas profile, I was able to identify any flaws in the initial UX model.
The users were family members or caregivers of people over the age of 62 who had a loved one living alone or in a retirement community.
An interview guide was created in preparation for the usability test. This allowed me to conduct interviews in a consistent and controlled manner.
Through interviews and research, I defined and refined the user personas, this was a critical task for the process.
Who is the target audience and what do they need? What are their habits and culture, their personalities, and their limitations? as well as what their pain points and limitations are and how to address them.
The goal is to identify the users so precisely that the user experience will be familiar and with a minimal learning curve.
Define Phase
User flow is crucial in a UX design for creating great user experiences and streamlining the user’s path—the problems they may encounter, and how to fix them.
At this stage, I analyzed my research findings from the empathize phase. This helped me to determine which user problems were the most important to solve and why. The goal was to help users find out what they need, and start the purchasing process.
Story Boarding
After defining the user’s path, I created high-level mood boards that expressed specific feelings and highlighted attributes.
Mood boards gave me the chance to define the design direction. This step is especially helpful to gain momentum during the early stages of a project.
Moodboards are an awesome tool I constantly use to help me sell concepts, and ideas.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Design
The homepage was intended to provide a central place for users to be introduced to the service.
A short video was included to explain how the whole process works, reinforcing the information we are trying to convey in a more descriptive and engaging way.
Prototyping
I like to take a different approach on this one, I brake the mold!
In this stage, I build an interactive prototype to show you how our solution works live in the Browser.
This allows me to cut down production time in half for faster delivery and without compromising quality.
Having an interactive prototype, allows me to test the solution early, and often. One of the first things I look into is the level of detail, making sure it has high fidelity and adequate resolution on screens.
Then, I test the functionality, and how the solutions work in real environments.
- Is the solution fully functional and open to the user?
- Can users easily navigate through it, and at the same time, restrict certain areas that require signing or payment to be accessed?
Digital prototyping is exciting as the prototype resembles the final product, allowing real-time testing and validation of ideas.
The development stage is a lot faster since I already have a functional prototype. At this point, I just make sure everything is plugged in correctly, clean coding, backend environments, plugin integrations, and cross-browser testing.
Usability Test
Performing a usability test allows me to know what users are experiencing, and at the same time compare the interfaces to industry standards.
Having an evaluation scale helps to keep things simple, utilizing 3 ratings: “poor, fair, pass” Usually, I ask some people to test drive the interface, as they can identify more issues.
There are sections with a number of questions for each section in the usability checklist: Accessibility, Navigation, Visual Information, and Labeling.
Once a “good” rating is achieved in all the questions, I can be confident users will find what they need.
This process will uncover issues I have missed, and identify the ones that were addressed successfully.
Deployment
Deploying it to the live server so it can be shown to the whole world.
The process involves several steps such as; securing a hosting account, setting up DNS records, setting up a staging site, setting up a production site, and occasionally setting up email accounts for users.
