Data Driven Design

Data Driven Design

Archive

2021

Overview

Role

Web Designer

Teams

UX

SEO Agency

Includes

Data Gathering

Google Analytics

Hotjar

This was the first two iterations of the homepage between 2018 – 2020. It held up well, however there were lots of problems this version of the homepage faced after being in use for about a year. 

Project

West Chiropractic was one of the first full web design clients i had onboarded. I have built and maintained the website since 2018.

As time goes by, trends & standards changed, and i wanted to include the evolution of this website homepage in my portfolio to demonstrate how I interpreted data, and created solutions to solve the design challenges that this website faced.

Although this is not a typical UX case study, it shows some insight into my thought process in adapting UI design to fit evolving  needs, and also my approach to data driven design.

Discovery

I had previously designed a website for the chiropractor. One year later the client contacted me, and he was now working with a SEO specialist. He asked me to contribute towards a redesign of the current homepage. We had a Zoom meeting where we outlined the current problems:
  • Due to the business growth, the current homepage did not serve current business goals
  • The main call to action has now been changed, from offering an eBook, to booking a free appointment
  • The current menu had bad contrast, which caused some navigational issues
  • The website wasn’t so authoritative – we needed to instil more trust to the user

We proposed to use some data we had collected from the website to identify any problems, and to create solutions. We had installed Google Analytics, so we had an idea of how users were using the website, and also Hotjar, which allowed us to see visually how users were moving through the website, and where they hit pain points.

Enter version 2. After discussing the above, we moved to version two, which was implemented in 2019. This version worked a lot better, and we saw improvements across analytics and Hotjar. This version improved heavily on the previous, however, over time we saw this version become less and less effective as the business grew. More pages where added, services were added, and the fundamental idea of the business began to shift.

Data Gathering

After running the data collection tools for several months, we had drawn a couple of conclusions:

  • We realised the top bar which contained contact number and email were receiving clicks. This wasn’t good, as the clicks go open your default mail application, and the phone number did nothing on desktop. However on mobile these actions are much clearer, as the number would go direct to your native phone app
  • We realised that 61% of traffic was mobile
  • The main call to action has now been changed, from offering an eBook, to book an appointment
  • The current menu had bad contrast, which caused some navigational issues
  • The website wasn’t so authoritative – we needed to instil more trust to the user
  • From watching anonymous user testing videos provided by HotJar, we could see the user was quite unsure of how to navigate. This could be down to a few things. I think we need to make navigation throughout the site more obvious, and trim down the selection.
  • Video had a low click through rate

The Process

The plan

  • After analysing all of the quant data we had at our disposal, I was able to use set out a plan for the design update to West Chiropractic. Here are some key points from my plan:
  • Mobile First
  • Update to font to create a more modern and authoritative look
  • Redo the information architecture. After adding a lot of new services and programmes, they are to be organised to help the user navigate, and also improve the SEO. After some conversation we decided on Treatments & Therapies.
  • Update the call to action to be bolder, and entirely redo the user experience of the flow
  • Better use of photography – images of inside the office seem a bit daunting
  • Change of colour palette, to be more bold and improve contrast across the board
  • Addition of separate location pages
  • Addition of blog design, and blog

The Solution

West Chiropractic Version 3, was updated in 2021.

Learning

What i learned

During the course of this project, i really got to grips with more analytical tools that can help drive a design. This was the first time i had used HotJar, and the insights were invaluable. I was able to visually see user pain points, and correct them. Also i was able to decide what parts of the design were not working for the user, and try something else in aid of higher conversion rates.

This project really was my first foray into UX. I realised i was able to actually effect conversion rates significantly through data and analytics. From here a passion would surface, and I officially stepped into the world of User Experience.