Background
Problem
The Roundabout Theater has witnessed a declining usage of its website and is seeking ways to re-design it.
Challenges
Mobile Optimization
As Roundabout Theatre has witnessed an increase in the number of its mobile users, its essential that the new design is responsive.
Unique Modern Aesthetic
Roundabout Theatre wants their website to look and feel like a modern design.
Consistent Branding
They also requested to use the existing logo, colors and other brand elements.
Content Driven: Roundabout wants to keep as much existing content as possible within the website.
My Role
I had worked along with three team members and I was responsible for conducting user research, constructing information architecture, conducting competitive review and ideating prototypes. Throughout the project, I adopted the role of an Administrator to facilitate documentation and communication of group discussions/decisions.
User Groups
To learn more about the people who would access Roundabout Theatre’s website, users were divided into four specific profiles namely educators, students, working professionals and visitors.
Research
I was responsible to understand users that fell under user profile description of ‘Visitors to NYC’.
2 Interviews
10 Surveys
Visitors to NYC said....
Meet Ian Miller
What did we learn?
Users look for comprehensive and accurate information that would guide them in purchasing tickets online
Process of selecting a seat should be interactive.
Structuring Content
To structure the content of website, it was important to understand the mental model of users and contextualize information accordingly.
For open Card Sorting Study, labels were created based on the website’s content information and categories.To ensure testers understood the labels, some existing labels were altered. For example, “Hiptix” was relabeled “Low-Price Ticket Program” However, It was difficult to consolidate all the website’s content into reasonable number of cards.
21 Participants
59 Cards
I had observed two participants organize label cards into categories that made sense for them and they labeled the categories as well. It was noticed that users faced difficulty to complete the card sorting process due to large number of cards to sort. Also, some card labels were not clearly understood by participants of the test and so they were left ungrouped.
What did we learn?
The creation of the “Memberships & Discounts” makes it easy to acquire membership and discount information in one place instead of scattered throughout the website.
Education programs for educators, students and audiences are better organized within the label ’ Education’ .
After analyzing the results from card sorting process, we collaboratively designed the information architecture for the website.
Testing the Structure
In order to test the newly structured content, we decided to conduct a Tree Test Study where users were asked to perform six tasks for the newly structured content and respond to related post test questions.
What did we learn?
Participants got confused between 'Education' Tab and 'Shows and Events' Tab for booking an educational Talk.
Calendar must consist information about both ‘Shows’ and ‘Events’
Competitive Analysis
Before we started designing interactions for users, it was essential to compare the functionality and usability of other websites similar to Roundabout's. We analyzed different features of Roundabout's website and selected websites for Competitive Analysis, which reflected the same features.
This was the stage that we gradually progressed from designing structure of the content to designing interactions for the users.
8 competitors
8 Dimensions
What did we learn?
Task Flows
To deduce the pages, content and features for developing interfaces of Roundabout's website, we designed two task flows.
1. To book a Show Ticket
2. To register for a Student Workshop
Ideating and Prototyping
Once the pages and features for the website were deduced, we started sketching our ideas on paper.
Testing the Prototype
To get a better idea about the effectiveness of our new design, we conducted a User Test. Users were asked to perform two tasks on the newly designed prototypes. When users were performing the determined tasks, I had noted my observations and relayed it to my teammates.
What did we learn?
The context for ‘Education’ Tab on the Home-Page was difficult to understand by the user. Renamed the ‘Education’ Tab as ‘Learn’ tab for a more familiar and less formal contextualization of content.
Divided Shows and Events into two separate pages “Shows’ and ‘Events'.
It was cited that users wished to know the exact show timings and cost per person for all the shows to make an informed decision. Added exact timings and range of cost per ticket for the shows on ‘Show page’ and 'Calendar' functionality on the home page
Final Design
Reflection
During the design phase of the project, I truly understood the importance of User research.While designing the interface, we knew our potential users, their experiences, their requirements and their expectations, which guided our design process till the end. I wish I would have known earlier, what I know now. I would have surely asked few different questions during the interviews or through questionnaires. Undoubtedly, I have acquired immense knowledge and skills regarding user research, competitive analysis or prototyping. Additionally, working in a group project was also a learning experience as I learned a lot from my colleagues/teammates. Each member brought a different perspective while working within the design process and our final deliverable exhibits the amalgamation of it.
