Credited by: Maggie Zheng

 

THE CLIENT

 
 
 
 

Hyper local journalism serving news all over South King County📝

Scott Schaefer, the owner of is South King Media is a hyper local journalism serving local news to readers all over the south Seattle region. B- Town blog being 1 out of its 7 media outlets is one we target mainly due to time constraints. As the head UX researcher on the team, it was my duty to merge business needs and research findings, to create a product that is more human- centric.

 
 

Business goals

 
 
“How can we create a great design that’s easy to read, easy to navigate and more video centric to enhance the mobile experience?”
— Product team & stakeholder

For the challenge of this product, we met with Scott and team members and came together with a couple deliverables for our project. Scott had mentioned he would like his website to be more video centric, being able to drive more traffic to his website, and also incorporating UX principles and methodologies to his current design to help boost his engagement and incorporating more of a modern design.

Solution

Creating a video centric responsive web design, that traffics more users while incorporating UX principles and methodologies.

 
 
 

Research & Planning

 
 
 

Google Analytics 📊

Given the analytics from the owner Scott, I was able to analyze the data trends within google analytics. One thing that stuck out to me was the age range of users who used the blog, 25-64 years old. In 2019, I noticed the average session per user was decreased by 21 seconds.

This really stood out to me as a researcher because this was telling us that users were using the site, but not staying on it long enough. Going to what Maggie mentioned earlier, increasing time spend on our website, I knew were were on to the right track.

Key Findings

  • Users are between ages of 25- 65 years old

  • Majority of users are women

  • Decrease in average time by 26 seconds, but increase in new users

 
 
 

Online Survey

 
 

Response rate of over 30 participants

During the research phase I conducted an online survey sharing on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Being a local to Burien, it was easier for me to find users who have used the blog, so I reached out to my network along with the list provided by our client and began my research.

Blasting the survey over social media, I got a response rate of 30 participants, answering questions like; what they use the blog for? How they use the blog? device type, and any pain points or improvements they have about the current design to get a general understanding of who our users are.

 
 

interview/ Usability testing

 
 
 
 

2 in person, 4 over the phone

Another research method I used during the project was conducting over the phone usability testing and user interview on the current site. I conducted a total of 6 usability testings, but due to scheduling and time constraints, 4 out of the 6 test were remote, and 2 were in person.

Through my usability testing, this was a powerful tool for me because I was able to dive deeper in to the users experience.

During our usability test/ interview, our interview questions consisted of 40 questions concentrating on key pain points such as Look, feel, changes and what they would like for a new design.

 
 
 

Persona

 
 
 
 

Melissa “ The Weekend Warrior” Mendoza | 45 Year old | Teacher

Melissa Mendoza is a community advocate, who loves staying involved with her community. Melissa is a mother of 2 who teachers at a local middle school, so keeping up with events and news are not just important to her, but with parents and students that she works with. When she’s not busy teaching, she likes to spend her time finding things for her family to do within her community.

Pain points: 

  • Easier navigation

  • Minimizing content overload

  • Video centered content

Serving: 

  • Strive for a design that is user friendly and beautiful

  • Easier navigation

  • Advertisement relocation

 
 
 

Mesuring success

 
 
 
 

System Usability Scale ( Sus Score)

So from our sus scores from our usability testing on our wire frames, we were able to hit our goal. Our 1 iteration we were able to increase our margins by 21 points. Our final sus score is 74/100 which is a 26.5 percent increase from our initial score.

 
 

Takeaways

 
 

Next steps

  • Designing for desktop experience

  • Ensuring desktop experience is also accessible and follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG 2.0)

  • Extending our recommendations to the other sites owned by South King Media

  • Adding more videos to homepage to pull users in

What we did well

  • Gaining insight on how we can make the experience great

  • Working collaboratively with entire team

  • Over the phone usability testing