Our Effect

By the end of two weeks, we: Increased average usability ratings from 1's to 5's and decreased time spent on-boarding by over ten minutes.

Additionally, we bolstered implicit and explicit value propositions into the existing platform and improved feelings of independence as well as completion rates.

We quickly became expert parents and providers by conducting qualitative and quantitative research.

In order to become experts in the space ourselves and stay true to our philosophies in UX design, we chose to conduct stakeholder interviews, a parent survey, activity provider interviews, contextual inquiry in activity-provider environments, competitive analysis, heuristic analysis and SME interviews.

Stakeholder Goals

Activity Provider Goals

Time is the biggest constraint for Activity Providers. They are often running the business by themselves. Most activity providers lack a consolidated online presence.

• Constrained by time and money

• Activity Providers use Facebook and mommy groups to promote their classes

We were only able to reach 2 out of 8 attempted APs in person for a contextual inquiry, revealing that the AP landscape is extremely gated. Our rejections were due to these vendors not having a brick & mortar location (conduct business in a rented, public or shared space), atypical business hours and small staff.

From our research, we discovered that most activity providers are non-loyal members of Kidpass, HiSaywer, Groupon, etc. They will try any platform that is available to market themselves but have not found a catch-all solution for their varied business requirements.

Parents Goals

Their primary goals are to activate new interests and expose their children to a broad range of activities.

77% of parents surveyed get activity ideas primarily via word of mouth.

Testing the Existing Platform

Redesigning the class input and onboarding "Wizard" was crucial to fixing major usability and abandonment issues.

We knew there were problems with the wizard, but wanted to conduct usability tests to abandon all assumptions and let the users speak.

First-time users responded negatively to perhaps the most crucial forms in the on-boarding process, filling out the class schedules. These schedules allow parents to book the classes. 

Usability testing of the current site was especially enlightening due to crystal-clear scenarios and tasks. The users really embodied the role of an activity provider which allowed us to contrast their expectations with the reality of below-average usability.

• Drop-in listings took too long to complete and were extremely frustrating to users. Drop-in listings are the most common type of listings on GB. 

  • Users did not feel guided through the process; often, terminology and copy merely confused them

  • Users often had to backtrack, having first done something incorrectly.

  • Users did not see positive visual cues, and negative cues were often simply glitches.

  • 2 users questioned how the posting would look to parents; they wished they could preview and were disappointed to not see that feature.

• Semester listings: Users assumed the Semester listing would be the easiest but ended up ranking it the lowest of all tasks and desired to abandon the task. 

  • The users who completed it incorrectly were still allowed to proceed. 

• Camp listings: users were so frustrated at this point that the primary insight is that the users would never get to this point in the first place. 

The existing website presents activity provider with the prospect of an efficient process; however, the reality is that the activity providers must stick through too many screens, tasks, and actions to finish just one listing, let alone every listing that they would want to post on the platform. 

The Problem

In order to dive deeper into how we could better serve activity providers, we took a step back as a team and used UX methodology to objectify our research into visual cues that helped us remain grounded in the user.

Activity providers face two glaring issues on GB: Abandonment and Value Questioning Once we fix usability issues, the AP's will still have to persevere through the rest of the journey, questioning the platforms value.

Because Activity Providers don't have extra time or resources, on-boarding new platforms is best when the process is invisible (someone else does it for them) and if additional value is provided (white label integration).

Luisa (Our persona) rarely has extra time or resources to advertise her classes and manage her bookings. Because of this, she is especially sensitive to even the most micro usability issues. However, she has not been offered a catch-all solution in this marketplace and thus continues to test different platforms. 

Ideating

How might we streamline GoBambino’s onboarding and listing process so that Luisa can see real benefit from GoBambino’s customers and booking services?

We conducted 3 rounds of design studio as a team. 1. How do we create implicit and explicit value? 2. How do we streamline the on-boarding process and 3. how do we make on-boarding easier for GOBAMBINO?

Prioritized Features and Changes:

• A simple dashboard with relevant information and clear calls to action

• An intuitive and QUICK activity listing process

• A way to save incomplete listings and resume when needed

• A way to access guidance or support in a way that feels natural and still allows for independence.

• Providing Luisa with explicit and implicit value encouraging return to the platform

Testing

During testing we aimed to evaluate: clarity of copy and terminology by TIMING; learnability and user confidence by LISTENING; ease and intuitiveness of flow by RANKING.

Paper Prototyping allowed us to test users' reactions to copy changes and actively listen to their assumptions about autofilling, auto-populating, and saving information. 

We continually asked them, "what do you think would happen?" which allowed them to guide our iterations moving forward. We primarily tested copy changes and clarity of information during this iteration; they reacted more positively to this copy, but still hesitated.

Mid Fidelity

During our iterations, we designed and tested:

• Imperative commands and conversational instructions to guide the user

• A progress bar to orient time sensitive users

• Form segmentation to break up the process and to allow for autopopulation

• Clickable and keyboard-accessible input fields to account of different user types

• Familiar elements and responsive fields

• Organizational tabs on the dashboard

• Personalization on the dashboard

• Saving and Archiving

Project hand-off

My team increased ratings from 1’s to 5’s, decreased time spent to complete a task and created a 100% completion rate.

In consideration of GoBambino's time and resources, we also built a roadmap (below) of the most crucial value additions as well as an informed estimate of how much time it would take. 

Link to Mixed-fi Prototype

Hi-fi Mockup for “final look”