Consilience coaching
Consilience Coaching would like to understand how enhance the user experience of their current website, in order to better attract and inform potential clients. Through evaluating the usability of the Consilience Coaching marketing website we hope to help our client encourage new leads and increase sales.
My role: UX Designer, UX Research, Moderator
Team: Emma Broderick, Jonny Fully, Lily Yang
Tools: Keynote, G-suite, FigJam, Figma, Zoom
Methods: Remote contextual interview, heuristic analysis, usability evaluation, report of findings, synthesis
Key Deliverables: Report of Findings
The ProbleM
How well is the current platform working for the users?
Consilience coaching is looking to draw in new clients to their business through their website. They hired our UX research team to conduct research to determine how to better inform and attract potential coaching clients. To answer this question, we evaluated the usability of the platform, identified key areas for improvement and presented visual recommended changes.
Prepare
First, I conducted an independent usability review through heuristic analysis to familiarize myself with the client and find focus areas for the upcoming usability review.
We then gathered our reviews as a group to identify a set of key tasks for the usability review that would be most helpful in reaching the clients goals. Then we created a list of evaluation goals for our usability testing.
Evaluation Goals
Identify if consilience coaching packages are communicated clearly and concisely
Observe any user pain points while navigating the plan pages, about page, and while booking a session.
To better understand if the website aligns with Emily’s goals of attracting and informing potential clients
Gather evidence for recommendations regarding overall impressions of the site
Evaluation Review
We created a script to run a group of users through the website to test for usability and desirability. The script gathered user flow through contextual review, as well as, guiding users through a set of key tasks to gain insight on our evaluation goals:
The Research
MethodolgY
Learn about Emily/Consilience Coaching
Understand what the plans do and how much they cost
Purchase/schedule a plan from Consilience Coaching
Schedule an appointment
User Group
We tested 9 users, all interested in health and wellness, to be reflect Consilience Coachings’ targeting market.
TESTinG
Script & Recording
Nine 30-40 minute sessions were conducted by three moderators and observers through screen sharing and video chat.
All tests were moderated and used a script that asked participants to Think Aloud about their natural progression through the website and to complete a series of tasks.
The tasks were selected based on the Evaluation Goal
EValuate
Analyzing the data
The team created sticky notes of all data from the 9 testing sessions and titled them according to screen page or user task.
Synthesizing the data
Data was sorted to identify significant patterns in the user experience. We organized data according to commonalities observed between participant observation. Then we categorizing further into topical site themes and user tasks to help gain key insights into the main challenges for users what areas were most helpful on the current site.
KEY FINDINGS
User Understanding
Overall, user left the website feeling confused about what Consilience Coaching was offering, the difference between packages, and cost.
User Flow
Overall, user did not find what they expected in the navigation bar, the offerings page, and the schedule now button. The two ‘schedule now’ buttons held inconsistency by navigating to different places, and users expected both to lead to a calendar and greater detail about the offering. Most all users enjoyed the ‘Booking Page’ but wanted a concise description listed under each offering title
Written content & aesthetics
Overall, users were not able to scan text easily due to lack of hierarchy. Most participants were not inclined to read large blocks of text and several users did not like the gray background with black font and found it difficult to read and unappealing.
“I wish all the different services were on one page to avoid going back and forth. It is hard to scroll back and forth to compare what I’m getting in the different packages and pricing.” - User C
Connection to the Coach
Overall, users wanted to feel more connected to Emily and the purpose of Consilience coaching. Participants expected the ‘About’ page to contain more information about what the coaching program is, and several users found the information Emily presented about her own story to be redundant. Users wanted to know the value the service would bring to their lives, and many users stated they would need to talk to Emily on the phone to feel ready to move forward with a purchase.
“I want a video of Emily here so I can see if I gravitate towards her and we’d connect.” - User A
Recommendations
1.) To create a more informative first impression and enhance the users’ understanding of the purpose of the site, I recommend a text overlay on the initial homepage image giving a brief description or quote regarding the purpose of Consilience Coaching. Eliminate the initial sign up modal, or consider putting into deeper pages of the website once users have explored.
2.) To increase the feeling of connection with Emily to the users, I recommend adding a video of Emily in the About Page. Adding a video would increase the personal connection to Emily for such an intimate service, but it would also be important that she give a brief overview about what consilience counseling is and who it is for to provide ultimate clarity for site visitors.
3.) To encourage new leads and potential sales, I recommend Emily highlight the initial consult call with a call to action button on the About Page and the Homepage.
4.) To increase professionalism, and to quickly inform users about Consilience Coaching there needs to be an increased focus on text scannability and hierarchy on all pages.
5.) To ensure users understand and view all offerings, I recommend one offering page that compares and contrasts the different services and clearly identifies their respective pricing and timeline options. I recommend each offering header be a link to a deep dive description of all that users will receive from the packages and share the value it brings to the user.
6.) To improve user flow and identification of the website mapping, I recommend changing Navigation bar headers to About, Offerings, Testimonials, Contact
Design EXAMPLES
Homepage changes
Create connection & value
Add a video introducing Emily and Consilience coaching purpose video and add a Discovery Call button to provide more connection and value for the users. Avoid a false bottom by bringing lower text or images higher up in the section, add consilience coaching purpose with a video instead of main image, call to action button for intro call, add client testimonial, and avoid a false bottom by bringing lower text or images higher up in the section
Booking Pages
The Summary
In conclusion, Consilience Coaching now has a significant list of next steps, examples and recommendations to improve their site. Providing more clarity, better usability, and creating more connection to potential clients will have a significant impact on Consilience coaching goals of attracting new leads, increasing sales and informing users.