Chamberlain University

Project Type: Client Project @ DVXD
Role: Product Designer (4 Designers)
Tools: Figma

Problem And The Goal

Chamberlain’s website required adjustments due to its low conversion rate and high bounce rate, indicating usability issues. A deeper analysis identified problems with content organization, structure, and labelling, leading to users seeking information elsewhere. Confusing navigation contributed to site abandonment, emphasizing the importance of creating value for users rather than just aesthetic appeal. Consequently, the project evolved from a conversion rate optimization effort into a significant website refresh and the development of a design system for the digital team. The team crafted content and interactive elements to enhance the user journey by utilizing analytics to understand student prospect behaviour. This approach resulted in a remarkable win rate of over 70% on variant tests and generated significant value in the eight figures.

Initial Research

In the next step, I sketched out the information architecture and the basic wireframes that highlighted the changes we wanted to make in the interface design. This stage was helpful to rapidly ideate and put ideas on paper. I then mocked up the wireframes into the corresponding interface design as it would look on the final prototype.

For complicated issues, there exists a basic framework. Before designing the screens, we wanted to understand the path from A to B. I find creating a mockup of the information is great, but they don't contain enough detail. Instead, I create a mockup centred around the see/do document.

For every screen or component, list:

What can the user see?

What can the user do?

Diagnosis, Insight, Action

Design is inherently collaborative. Throughout my involvement in client projects, we prioritized user data and research insights. Facilitating ideation workshops and moderating testing sessions allowed for diverse perspectives to converge, resulting in insightful product decisions that project managers may not have discerned independently.

Here is an overview of the design thinking sessions in which I participated, contributing to uncovering solutions for complex problems and shaping product vision. These sessions encompassed various methodologies, including design sprints, co-creation workshops, and customer journey mapping. This collaborative model involved working closely with data analysts, engineers, and product owners, emphasizing effective communication strategies and maintaining a consistent meeting schedule to ensure the creation of exceptional user experiences.

Sprint 82 – Organic Mobile RMI Revision - Each thing the user can do, the action, can be linked to the corresponding screen. E.g. the "Program Details" tab on a sign-in page block etc. Sometimes the simpler the approach, the better. It gets your thoughts out quickly and transitions to the design phase earlier in this case.

Sprint 82 – Organic Mobile RMI Revision - users and technology should easily understand labels. Labels should be as descriptive as possible, though navigation labels tend to be shorter than content labels. Their usage should be consistent.

Setting Up the Structure

I adopted the following solutions:

• Sections, subsections, and components are very  simple and do not involve complex animations or interactions;

• Minimally and intentionally designed so that the user can get as much info as quickly as possible;

• Clear visual hierarchy and scannable content:

For example, the section “Choosing between programs” was not very self-explanatory before the redesign, so we decided to rename it. In addition, some subcategories were very cross-cutting, while others did not seem to belong to any one category. Consequently, I revised some parts of the menu to make it more intuitive.

Balancing User Needs with Business Goals

Call-to-action text - This experiment always gives valuable insights. I have seen experiments where the increase in conversion rate is as much as 40% simply by changing the text of a button. I'm sure there is the potential for this to be even higher on some sites. For example, we changed the button text from "continue" to "request information" and saw an increase of 30%+ in conversion, comparatively.

RN-MSN Refresh (From Left (Before) to Right (After) - Deciding the number of items to include in a section. How many items per menu are too many for users? How many items are too few? What is the order in which users wish to see site navigation items? What is the order in which the client wishes to present navigation items? All things were considered.

Sprint 85 – RN-MSN Refresh (From Left to Right) - One common theme that kept coming up was the overwhelming amount of textual elements. Users were inundated with technical, legal, cost, and competitor information, all at once. Even though they were all crucial to figuring out the product context, they needed to be reviewed and split into smaller, digestible bits.

Column order in Design

Sprint 85 – RN-MSN Refresh (From Left to Right) - These aren't my favourite experiments because altering around with the UX so dramatically often reduces conversion, which is not a great surprise if there was some logic put into the original design. However, in some sites, we have seen adjusting the order of columns (the columns were things like images, tables, and making links visible) gave a positive impact on conversion of around 10%.

Reflections

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION BRINGS INNOVATION:

Designing a website from the start required insights from different users, external specialists, and conversations with many internal teams. This continuous exchange of opinions originated a good feedback loop and many insights that I probably wouldn’t have had working on the project alone.

PRACTICE IS THE BEST WAY TO LEARN:

This project was challenging in that there were many technical details and unique constraints I had to wrap my head around. This was my first major UX project involving almost all the internal teams. Not having much previous experience and being one of the few UX designers, I spent a good deal of time experimenting with tools and methodologies. I made some mistakes, but this enabled me to understand how to approach future projects. I closely kept my superiors in the loop to avoid getting too lost in the learning process. It helped me realign with my superiors when timelines were pushed and allowed me to deliver the project on time successfully. Yet, it was truly a rewarding experience to design a product that can help ease the lives of prospects and empower the users so they can live their lives to the fullest.