Industry Design Project — Bernard Homicile

Industry Design Project:

Website Redesign & Improve Chatbot User Flow

Overview

Improve company’s website design and user experience with their chatbot.

To start, we collectively familiarized ourselves with the existing product to understand its business goals, requirements, and user feedback. We conducted an audit of the current user flow to identify pain points, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement. The next stage involved analyzing the design strengths and weaknesses of both direct and indirect competitors, followed by actionable recommendations. Based on the collected user feedback, we designed improved user flows for finding grants using the chatbot. Once the flows were finalized, we turned the wireframes into high-fidelity designs ready for testing. Finally, we packaged all deliverables and findings in a format that would be easily understood and incorporated into future projects.

Project Type:

Industry Design Project - Freelance

Duration:

4 weeks

Tools:

Figma, Google Docs, Google Meet

Problem

Starting a month-long internship with a new team felt like being thrown into the wild, having to think on our feet to survive. Three different designers, including myself, were tasked with redesigning a company’s website and updating the user flow of their chatbot. Initially, I felt like a contestant on 'Survivor' on the first night. We faced clashing opinions and differing perspectives as we worked to find solutions. However, by emphasizing effective communication and respecting each other's viewpoints from the start, we were able to strategize and collaborate more effectively, making the task at hand easier to overcome.

Role

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Audit company website and user flow.
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Familiarizing ourselves with the company's chatbot.

Conduct research on usability tasks that should be administered.

Analyze and report best practice recommendations and trends from competitors.

Constraints

Audit, analyze, report, design, and deliver in 1 month.
Work remotely with fellow designers in different time zones.
Once a week check-ins with the stakeholders.

Challenge

Website was live but Chatbot was in Beta Testing.
No Real Analytics or Metrics to review
Limited data on user tests only testing was preview tests.

Goal

Improve the users’ experiences with company’s website interface .
Analyze and Report areas of opportunity to improve the journey of their user’s from a customer perspective interacting with their chatbot.

Understanding The Challenge

Company Review - Heuristic Analysis

“I thought the links in the menu would take me to a specific landing page, but it just looks like it takes me to the same section on the page again.”

— User Test Participant

Competitor Analysis Review

The Principles to prioritize:

User control and freedom (emergency exit)
Consistency and Standards (platform conventions)
Aesthetic and minimalist design (only necessary elements)
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

“I’d like some confirmation that my answer was inputted correctly, I’m not sure what level of detail the chatbot understood. I wonder if it will be a waste of time.”

— User Test Participant

Website Landing Page User Journey

ChaBot UserFlow Journey

User testing Feedback

“If the ChatBot experience sounded more conversational this would help users feel as if they are asking a person for help.”

— User Test Participant

Userflow / User Journey Map

Design Process

Sketches

UI Design Style Guide

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Hi Fidelity Designs

ChatBot Loading Screen 1

ChatBot Loading Screen 2

Takeaways

Next Steps…

Conduct continuous usability testing with users.
Implement and refine the UX language that will create a tone of voice that is more aligned with users.
Strategize ongoing user engagement to maintain and grow user satisfaction.

What I learned…

Through user research, we learned the users’ needs, behaviors and pain points. Our competitive research gave us a comprehensive view of how others solve their UI/UX problems so that we can apply them. Testing and improving was key to creating a user-centric product. Our research data enabled us to make informed evidence based design decisions. Consequently the final product was more aligned with user expectations and requirements.