Project statement
A passionate writer and reader who sees an opportunity of taking her passion into a business. The owner and CEO of a company with over 8 years of experience in legal translation and interpretation of both legal and technical documents, wants to dedicate her time on growing as a content writer and the company she already built can evolve through collaborators.
The problem
1
She wants to divide the content and copywriting services of the main company into a new one.
2
Her passion is writing and as a copywriter she can express her creativity, also the clients are more diverse and interesting to work with.
3
The image of a company based on legal and technical translations differs significantly from that of content and copywriting services. It results in confused customers.
The goal
She wants to separate the content and copywriting services from the main company and create a new one. Her passion is writing, and as a content writer, she can express her creativity and the clients are more diverse and interesting to work with.
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chapter
Research
summary
In the research phase, I conducted user interviews with current and prospective clients to find out what our users want and need. I also conducted analyses on the websites of several companies with similar business services to get a better understanding of the market.
1
Key insights from user interviews
Time efficiency, organization, quality services and a straightforward attitude are key.
Work examples and reviews are very important.
Most clients prefer to communicate face-to-face, via text message or email.
2
Business & market insights
Most international websites have easy communication, client assistance features and different methods of ordering online.
On international websites there is a lack of customer feedback features, which are more present on local websites.
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Define
Persona
Who is this for ?
Based on the user interviews, I concluded there are four main target users for Pen Poised: startups, marketing agencies, event organizers and freelancers.
1
Startups
2
Marketing agencies
3
Event organizers
4
Freelancers
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Ideate
Features
Based on the personas and research phase, I identified the core features on which I can focus the website in order to meet both the clients needs and the CEO's business vision.
1
Order a service and manage files through a user account
The user can order and pay for a social media text. He will receive an instant price and the time needed to be completed.
2
Customer communication
A chat as an easy conversation method to answer any question the user might have in a
24-hour time frame.
3
Community
A search option in the blog section that would allow users to browse based on subjects or key words.
Site map
With these core features in mind, I conducted a card sort study to gain insight into how other potential users might expect the content to be organized and used the results to create a sitemap.
Wireframes
paper wireframes
I started with pen-and-paper mockups for every page, and I made many different versions, until I found the combination that matches user needs and would be as intuitive as possible.
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Test
Tree test
I created a task analysis using the tree test method. This gives me a clear understanding of the steps the user would take in order to complete a task. It also gives me an idea of how to organize the information in order to help my user easily find what he was looking for.
1
Order a text for social media
2
find the prices for services
User flows- happy path
After the tree test, I found out which is the most common path that the user would take for two of their main goals and also how to help the exception user who takes another path to obtain their goal.
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Path 1 - Stan the Start-up guy wants to buy a custom text for social media fast and easy.
2
Path 2 - Flavia the Freelancer wants to find the blog post she read a few weeks ago and wants to save this post to read it again later.
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Prototype
Prototype
Lo-fi prototype
Next, I built a low-fidelity clickable prototype in Figma that will be used for testing with potential users.
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Usability
Usability study
Parameters
Study type: usability study
Participants: 7 participants
Location: Cluj-Napoca, on - site
Time: 30 minutes
Findings
By conducting usability tests, I was able to find out what users were finding useful or difficult to see or find. I conducted two rounds of usability studies: on the low-fidelity prototype and the high-fidelity prototype.
1
Users were confused about the service organization.
Users found the menu confusing.
Some users could not find the ORDER A QUOTE service.
Users wanted to be able to communicate more easily with someone from the company to answer their questions.
2
The chat box was not noticed at first by most users.
The process of ordering a quote online was confusing for most users.
They did not understand what steps they needed to take in order to complete the process.
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Hi-fi prototype
Takeaways
What I learned ?
The most important takeaway from this project is to focus on the user needs first. I learned that the user experience from one screen to an other can be very different, a design solution that works very good in a screen size is not the best one for an other.
