Company:
Wellthy Soul

Year:
2019

Type:
Website Redesign

My Role:
Heuristic Evaluation
User Testing
Rainbow Spreadsheet
Improve SEO & SMO
Wireframing
Prototyping

Project Overview

For this project, UX Designers Sarah, Garrett, and I were tasked with creating a user-friendly experience online for Wellthy Soul. Our point of contact Layne is the founder and one of nine health coaches whose programs are virtual and can be completed from anywhere with internet access.

Solution

Using research and information architecture our design team reorganized her website, resulting in a better user experience on how to purchase one or all of the programs provided.

Research

The Stakeholder Goals

During our first interview was with Layne, the founder of Wellthy Soul, she told us the content is not the issue, just how it’s organized. Her target audience is postnatal women age 35-45. Her goals are:

1. Sell online programs
   Her clients need a better way to navigate to one or all of the programs sold online.

2. Easily join newsletter
   Sign-up for newsletter is second only to the programs.

3. Improve SEO & SMO
   Client wants to learn how to improve Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimization

Usability Studies

My team and I focused on user testing to observe their experience purchasing one or all of the programs on her website. We created the proto-persona named Katie to remove personal bias.

Heuristic Evaluations

I wanted to confirm Layne’s issue with her website, so I walked through the site myself, thinking how Katie might navigate — taking screenshots and notes of the improvements I could make before my user testing. The screenshots I received gave me a starting point to start crafting tasks for my user interviews.

Rainbow Spreadsheet

As we prepared to begin our user interviews, we shared a Google Sheet with observations written in the left-hand column within our team. After we completed the walkthroughs with two female users, we colored in the row with their assigned color and shared it with our stakeholder, Layne. The visual representation of the findings this type of report provides helped her quickly understand any pain points we uncovered.

One unique insight Layne had was that the users didn’t want to read about the instructors. According to her analytics, the coaches’ pages has the most visits on her site. We concluded that the coaches’ pages were something her clients visit after they commit to a program.

This insight justified why we would remove the coaches button from the main menu later on.

SEO & SMO Research

Improving Search Engine Optimization:

The health and wellness market is very competitive online, making it harder than ever to improve the ranking for our client. The good news is SEO and UX have partnered up, and with our suggestions, we may not make the first page, but we will improve its chances of getting there.

In short, what’s good for the user is good for the search engines.

SEO Strategy

• Sign up for a free Google Analytics account and start tracking Direct Visits, Time On Site, Pages Per Session and Bounce Rates to see what’s working.

• Remove unnecessary content and design, so each landing page has one specific goal.

• Make your content easy to scan and allow visitors to focus on consuming the headline and matching the content on the landing page at a glance.

• Avoid multi-level menu items. It makes it harder for your other web pages to rank in search results.

• Responsive design is important. Mobile is important to new visitors, but returning visitors prefer a desktop.

S.M.A.R.T. Social Media Strategy

Without a doubt, referral traffic is the most efficient way for new users to visit. An email, blog post or a shared Facebook post gives Wellthy Soul the best bang for the buck to bring in new potential clients. To boost her strategy, I suggested Layne practice S.M.A.R.T.

• Set Specific Goals: Primary goal is to increase traffic to the website. Create original content that has a clear call to action to a specific landing page in Wellthy Soul.

• Measurable: Use Google Analytics ‘Social’ link to start measuring which platforms were driving that traffic so you can set goals. For example, if social traffic is at 4%, try to increase it to 5% next month by focusing on different platforms. Experiment!

• Achievable: Choose a realistic goal. One Facebook/Instagram post every week...etc.

• Realistic: Don’t overdo it. Quality is key for keeping users engaged when you post online.

• Time Specific: Choose time frame. For example, the above could be done within the second quarter.

Do’s & Dont’s For SMO

• Do post consistently

• Don’t buy followers

• Do follow your brand guideline when posting.

• Don’t post more than two a day.

• Do diversify your content per platform.

• Do engage with the audience in the comments or images posted.

• Do add a clear Call to Action to every post (Read More, Buy Now).

• Don’t use low-resolution images.

• Do use relevant #hashtags