Unclear on what exactly we do/provide for teacher and schools
Brief
Redesign the homepage to better illustrate the new company goals — the full conversion to SaaS business, a higher focus on B2B, and further internationalisation of the business.
The detailed written version here
Structure
We worked in a crossfunctional team, I connecting all limbs of the business.
Timeline
Research
I started by hypothesising, what our users are looking for and the problems that may face. Then I set out to interview a variety of school leaders and teachers, primary and secondary, east to west making sure to cover any edge cases, therefore, allow me to have a solid base to go off.
My hypothesis:
1. International schools do not know who we are (brand)
or the products and services we offer (value)
2. We are a recruiting company
3. We come across as a UK centric business
4. We are too expensive for the independent schools
Qualitative
I interviewed a total of 7 people, whereby I created a loose script/questionnaire as a base to pry open these users and, to gain a better understanding of what they loved, hated and expected from tes.com.
+ Competitive research
+ ongoing Stakeholder meetings as the business was defining the strategy/offerings in parallel so the designs had to reflect those.
Quantitative
Worked very closely with the heads of the sales teams, who had a combine experience/user knowledge of 25+ years.
This was a wonderful insight, as they had “interviewed” 100’s of thousands of customers and has a clear understanding of there pain points and expectations.
Findings
There was some crossover in my hypnosis and finding, which was great to know. But also some new areas of concern were discovered — jotted down below.
We come across as a UK first/only business
no proof of how we have/could help
Note worthy findings
- Easy navigation into other areas of the site
- Login box unnessessary
(feels like a must/gated ) - Homepage: recommend pop up =
annoying, 1-10 scale too big 5 would be
enough + usually ignored
- Categorise steams / teacher
schools and aspirating teachers - Expects latest education news /
current affairs and range of articles - Imagery lacks diversity / seems stocky -
illustrations suggested
Personas
From the research conducted; these where some of the personas formed. As these were created based on real people I interviewed, it was much easier to put myself in their shoes. Of course, the personas embodied 100's of thousands of leaders and staff added from the Sales teams on the job experience, but something about having a true source of reference is interesting.
UX
Plotting the journey and structure. At this stage, there were many iterations and card sorting exercises to define the best user journey that balances the business goals and customer needs. It was important to NOT alienate our core customer base with B2B offerings.
Pre-UI
At this stage, I was trying out many a different layouts. Restained by the CMS functionality and inturn time. In a previous project, we created a CMS and in each project I use it, I try to improve it in whatever ways I can. SO for all projects at the design stage, there are three versions:
1. easy = can build out the box
2. ideal = some enhancements need to be done to realise the design
3. aspiration = building new features, making big changes creating for the future.
With these designs, the Engineers and I battle it out.
This battle I left with:
Sticky hero / CTA (UX)
Implementation of SVGs (performance improvement)
Icons in card (UI)
Full-width pages (previously had a left nav)
And some other minor improvements.
I worked closely with marketing to get the look and feel right, and copywriters to get the tone of voice down — so the final prototype put in front of the board was as close to the end result as possible.
UI
Adding art direction and life to the skeleton.
This was relatively straightforward as this project was built on the CMS, which was built using the design system. So most of the UI was sorted and we only need to focus on the art direction and implementing slight changes to the CMS to facilitate the designs
Launch
Through this redesign, we addressed all issues and better-aligned ourselves for future moves. With a clear explanation of who we are, what we do and how we can help you. see live site here
Result
The project was recieved really well internally and externally. Regrouped with the original user testers and sales team to close the loop and double check we’re address all the problem they had pointed out. They believed we had. As of writting the impact of this project...
lead generation
increase in new registration
increased click through, reduced bounce rate
PostscriptI'd have the business strategy/offering finalised so I could use to influence my layout and inturn the user. I'd want to work closely with marketing; in this project, I defined the art direction and they adapted it. Moving forward it should be more of a collaborative effort throughout. Ways of working: At that stage, we were using excel and sketch which; created some friction regarding transparency and things being out of date. We've moved to Figma and I want to start using Notion.
We have revisited this project to refine copy, modify illustrations and A/B test different structure, with each iteration moving the needle in the right direction. If I was to do this again: