Overview

 

Problem

Due to the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, Americans weren’t able to workout at their nearby gym.

As they were searching for at-home workout products, it was hard to find the specific ones that they needed, because many of the companies either:

1.     Were out of stock of the desired product(s), and/or

2.     Had webpages that had either poor navigation and design, or had neglected providing the necessary information.

 

Research-Backed Findings/Suggestions

  • Add text to the carousel images, to either describe the product, mention any sales, or highlight new products.

  • Add more sections with diverse categories of the products on the Home page.

  • Add customer success stories easily viewable for visitors on the Home page.

  • Add an “Add to Cart” button that is always viewable underneath each product image.

The explanations for each of the above suggestions can be found at the bottom of the page (UX Research Summary).

 
 

Stakeholders

1 Founder/C-Suite

My Roles

UX Researcher
Interviewer

My Roles

Adobe XD
PowerPoint

Duration

20 hours

 
 

Note: Within the rest of this page, I will use “Client” to refer to Vesta Fitness.

UX Project Process

UX Research

 

An entire UX project contains both research and design, each of which has two sub-phases.

The research content mostly consists of components in the research and define phases, whereas the design phase consists of the design and test phases.

Note: This deliverable was created with Adobe XD.

 
  1. Research

Research Goals | Competitive Analysis/Insight | Interviews | Interview Analysis/Insight

Research Goals

 
 

Gather Key Findings Of How Client Stands With Its Competition –

o What keeps Client ahead of its competitors, and more importantly,

o What the Client is lacking, in order to identify ways for it to improve, expand, and grow.

 

Understand Wants And Needs Of Client's Audience –

o Uncover participants’ pleasures of Client’s current website, and

o Identify key pain points shared by participants as they view Client's web pages.

Competitive Analysis

 
 

To understand how Client stands with competitors, I gathered desktop data from both Client and four of Client's competitors.

The importance of competitive analysis is to see content/design that Client either has (or doesn't have) in relation to Client's competitors.

 

Key Insight

Below are the key insights gathered from the previously outlined competitive analysis of the four competitors’ websites.

This helps get a better idea of what kinds of interview questions to ask participants, in order to gain more understanding of how participants both positively and negatively perceive Client's designs.

Note: This deliverable was created using Figma.

Interviews

 
 

After analyzing the results of how Client compares with the five competitors, I searched for applicable participants who fit the Client’s persona.

Note: This deliverable was created with Adobe XD.

 

Key Insight

Below are the key insights found, from the analysis of the interviews.

The most important insights from these interviews are also mentioned in the empathy map in the define phase.

Note: This deliverable was created with Adobe XD.

2. Define

Persona | Empathy Map | Sitemap | User Flow

Persona

 
 

After assessing and analyzing the research findings, I created a primary persona, to define a realistic customer and user of Vesta Fitness’ products and features.

Note: This deliverable was created with PowerPoint and Adobe XD.

 

Empathy Map

 
 

After analyzing the responses, actions, thoughts, and feelings from participants in the research study revolving around Client's desktop and mobile application, I put together an empathy map, which highlights the greatest and most impactful findings, from:

  1. Says: What participants say about their experience while viewing Client's website/application(s).

  2. Does: What participants do on the website/application(s).

  3. Thoughts/Feelings: How participants think/feel about certain pages/content/navigation.

  4. Views/Hears: What participants see/hear in different types of content.

  5. Pains: How participants experience different pains/difficulties, while using the website/application(s).

  6. Gains: When participants experience a fruitful/positive end goal.

The empathy map helped to gage what main concepts to keep in mind, prior to starting to sketch out the redesigns of the web pages.

Note: These deliverables were created with Adobe XD.

 

Sitemap

 
 

This sitemap depicts all of the webpages, and the interaction between each of the connected webpages.

Note: This deliverable was created with Adobe XD.

 

User Flow

 
 

This user flow provides the many possible steps that a customer can make on Client's website, in order to reach the end goal of purchasing one of Client's products.

Note: This deliverable was created with Adobe XD.

 
 

Conclusion of UX Research

For Client - Vesta Fitness

UX Research Summary

 

Key Highlights From UX Research

Research-Backed Findings/Suggestions, based on the competitor analysis, and participant interviews:

  • Add text to the carousel images, to either describe the product, mention any sales, or highlight new products.

    • Explanation: Interviewed participants wished to more easily understand what Client is selling; felt that the product images on the Home page carousel were generic pics.

  • Add more sections with diverse categories of the products on the Home page.

    • Explanation: Interviewed participants wanted to see more of a selection of products on the Home page, to more invited to determine if their tastes were similar to what Client was selling.

  • Add customer success stories easily viewable for visitors on the Home page.

    • Explanation: Interviewed participants wanted to be given sufficient information about a company and the quality of the products, before they chose to look further into the available products.

  • Add an “Add to Cart” button that is always viewable underneath each product image.

    • Explanation: Interviewed participants voiced that it wasn’t immediately clear how to add a product to their cart; they only saw the “Add to Cart” buttons pop up, on top of the item image, once they hovered over it.

 

Retrospective

 

Challenges

Although Client had a site that was set up for selling their workout products, interview participants’ thoughts gave insight in ways to improve the design.

It was tough to figure out exactly how to redesign the Home and Shop pages, especially since those are Client’s most important pages. Due to the fact that interview participants wanted to more clearly understand the types of products that Client was selling, it was important to satisfy all of their expectations, while also keeping it succinct and aesthetically pleasing.

 

Next Steps

 

What’s next?

I used this research data, to proceed to the design phase (UX Design - Vesta Fitness). I worked on adding applicable new pages, redesigning mid-fi wireframes, and prototypes.

The redesign was all based on both the knowledge created/produced during the research phase, in addition to continued usability testing.

 
 

Thank you!

for being engaged!

 

Feel free to connect with me, if you either want to learn more about my background/experience, or have any opportunities for me!

ux.cassandra@gmail.com