Project Overview

Sandrine Marlier

This project includes researching and understanding who the target audience is, understanding their needs and re-designing a responsive website for a better User Experience.

Tools

Figma

ChatGPT

Google Meet

Miro

Role

UX Researcher

UX Designer

UI Designer

Branding

Background

Sandrine Marlier is a professional life coach, meditation teacher, reiki master and author of children’ book. She has worked with many clients, helping them explore their values, strength and interests, setting goals, overcoming obstacles and guiding them towards their personal growth.

Problem

Throughout her career as life coach, Sandrine has been finding clients and developing her business mostly through her personal connections and her social media audience. She also owns a website built by her on Wix, where she represents her business. However, this website hasn’t been generating any clients and has not been helpful to the business. The actual website does not represent a niche and does not present well all the services and courses that Sandrine offers.

Research

Heuristic Evaluation

Through this part of research I realized that the business did not have a niche/ target clientele as well as identified areas for improvement to enhance user experience.

After I analyzed competitors to gain insights into their strategies, strengths, and operational methods, I was able to create patterns for my client’s business model. Each competitor has a specific niche.

Competitive Analysis

Surveys

Gathered quantitative data to understand the audience'sdemographics, preferences, and behaviors. I was able to note down a few areas of interest that are going to help in course designing.

User Interviews

Conducted in-depth interviews with target users to gather qualitative feedback, gaining insights into their needs, pain points, and preferences to inform user-centric design solutions.


POV & HMW

Defined the user's perspective and framed the problem as actionable questions to drive innovative solutions.

Before starting with the research methodologies I conducted an interview with the client to better understand their needs and goals:

Can you describe your business for me?

Client interview Takeaways

Business Goals

User Research: Conduct in-depth research to understand the target audience and niche clientele, guiding design decisions.

Business Growth: Develop strategies for scaling the business, including building an email list to drive communication and growth.

Community Engagement: Cultivate a strong, engaged community around the brand or product, fostering loyalty.

Online Presence: Enhance UX/UI design for the website and integrate with other platforms to boost online visibility.

Responsive Design: Optimize the website for all devices, improving accessibility and usability.

User Engagement: Improve information architecture to make content more accessible and increase user interaction.

Project Goals

Identify Target Audience: Conduct user research to understand the demographics, needs, and preferences of the target audience, informing the design process.

Refine Information Architecture: Restructure the website's information architecture to optimize navigation and ensure intuitive access to relevant content, enhancing user experience.

Enhance Interface Design: Redesign the user interface with a focus on usability, accessibility, and aesthetic appeal, aiming to create an engaging and seamless interaction for the target audience.

Heuristic evaluation

The next step was conducting a heuristic evaluation of my client’s existing website. I based my research on Visual Principles and Usability Principles.From this research I was able to diagnose a couple of major and minor issues with the website that included violation of these Heuristic Principles :

  • Violation

    Recommendation

    More titles and organization of information and pages to make everything more organized and easy to find and read

    The pages have a disorganized use of the fonts making the information feel confusing.

    Recognition rather than recall

  • Recommendation

    Violation

    Simplify and summarize to improve readability.

    Flexibility and efficiency of use

    Long paragraphs or excessive text can reduce efficiency and make it harder for users to find and use relevant information.

Another important takeaway from this research and the interview with the client was that the business did not have a niche/ target clientele that would make it differentiate and specialize among competitors, help in a more targeted marketing and improve client inquisition.


Researching and finding the niche and the target clientele would make the first and most important goal for this project.



competitive analysis

For the second part of the research I conducted Competitive Analysis. For this I gathered three successful competitors in the field that represented my client’s inspiration business model. This research gave me many insights about how other business operate, what their strengths and weaknesses were as well as their opportunities for growth. With these insights I was able to draw similarities and differences between my client and her competitors, creating in this way patterns that would then be filled in with my client’s services around her niche and targeted audience.

Therefore the next step would be sending out Surveys, to gather quantitative data and understand the audience's demographics, preferences, and behaviors, facilitating informed design decisions.

SURVEY

Before I started to draft the survey questions I saw it reasonable to conduct another interview with the client. That would allow me to tailor the survey questions to be more relevant and effective as well as refining the survey objectives based on real-time discussions and feedback, leading to more targeted and actionable insights.


The Survey Results for this research :

  • Future Objectives

    • Top Objectives:

      • Career success: 69.8%

      • Physical health: 62.8%

      • Boosting self-confidence: 51.2%

      • Time management: 48.8%

      • Financial independence: 39.5%

      • Insight: Career growth and physical health dominate future goals, signaling areas where life coaching could provide value.

  • Key Takeaways

    1. Awareness and Demand: While participation is low, interest in life coaching is high, with a majority expressing curiosity and openness to personal growth.

    2. Barriers to Entry: A lack of understanding and cost concerns may be limiting life coaching adoption.

    3. Target Areas: Career development, health and wellness, and clarifying life goals present prime opportunities for impactful coaching services.

    4. Demographics: The audience is predominantly younger adults, with work-related stress and moderate life satisfaction as common themes.

AFFINITY MAP

After I conducted the three forms of research I affinity mapped my findings that helped me draw some patterns and insights to better understand the user.


At the end of the synthesis I was able to answer questions like who the user is, what the user needs help with the most, how to access the user and how affordable and accessible the service should be for the user.

USER INTERVIEWS

After the survey questions I tailored the interview questions based on the client interview insights. For this part of the research I interviewed 6 people, two of them were previous clients of my client and four of them were potential clients who were interested in services and products related to life coaching.

The User Interview Script included these 21 questions:

Can you tell me about your current occupation or what you're doing professionally?

Research Takeaways

Identify Weaknesses

Future Resolution

Challenge

Assess Mistakes

Receive Honest Feedback

Follow Up

Discuss a Plan

Structure a Path

Motivate

Hold Accountable

Navigate the Workforce

Speak Confidently

Personal Growth

Uplift

Set and Achieve Goals

Change Unhealthy Situations

Build Confidence and Self-Belief

Shift Life Perspective

Embrace New Experiences

Grow and Evolve

Self-Discovery

Health and Lifestyle

Career and Professional Development

Financial Concerns

Personal Relationships

Work-Life Balance

Time Management

Self-Efficacy and Motivation

Decision-Making and Future Planning

User’s Expectations

from life coaching services

User’s Outcomes

that they hope to achieve

User’s Areas

of struggle and challenge

These findings as well as other finding included in the handover document to my client served as the base for my client to develop her business niche and target a specific audience through designing courses and services specifically for them as well as creating social media content that address the topics found through this research.


After the affinity mapping I was able to create a User Personas who represent the target audience of my client and the hero around who she will be designing her business.

USER Personas

I wrote 10 POV statements to clarify user perspectives and guide focused problem-solving

  • How might we find away for the users to keep receiving free resources and be informed about the new services offered.

  • How might we find other ways for the users to connect with the coach outside of the courses for a free daily dose of inspiration.

  • I would like to explore ways to help the user with free resources without or prior to deciding to purchase any courses.

  • I would like to explore ways to show previous clients’ experiences so the user has an idea whether the service and the coach is suitable for them or not.


Then I designed HMW questions to identify actionable steps and drive creative solutions based

on the POV statements.

Roadmap

Sitemap

Visualize and organize the structure and flow of a website for intuitive navigation.

Task Flows

Map out user paths to ensure smooth and intuitive navigation through the website

SITeMAP

The next step was creating a sitemap that I used to organize and visualize the website’s structure to ensure intuitive navigation and effective content management that would then be used as the base to wireframing.

Then I created task flows to ensure a clear understanding of the user's journey and identifying potential improvements in the process.

TASK FLOWS

Branding

Moodboard

Curating a visual collage to capture the brand’s look, feel, and emotional tone

UI Kit

Showcasing key visual elements like colors and typography to define a brand’s style.

Before starting the branding phase, I met with my client to discuss her vision for the website. She shared her desired look and feel, along with a moodboard to guide the design.

The material provided together with some inspiration websites lead to the creation of this UI Kit:

Wireframes

Low Fifelity

Outlining of a design to map out layout and functionality.

Client Feedback

A discussion to gather feedback on low-fidelity wireframes and refine the design direction.

High Fidelity

A detailed design representation that provides a close-to-final view of the website

First I sketched out some wireframes using the information gathered through the research. Then I digitalized them on this mid-fidelity wireframe where I included the most important information.

Then, I conducted a client interview where they gave me their feedback on mid fidelity wireframes. The next step would be designing High Fidelity Wireframes, using the UI kit.

After sharing the High Fidelity Wireframes with my client and receiving their approval, I was able to move forward with the Prototype:

Usability Testing

Usability Testing

Participants were able to complete the task. There was some confusion in page naming and button naming.

Test Conducting

For this assignment I conducted 5 usability tests with the users. They were asked to complete the task of purchasing “The Path Finder” course and adding to the cart another complementary service while I followed their behavior on Figma Prototype

Tasks

Task 1: Add to cart “The Path Finder” course

Task 2: Add to cart another complementary service coaching 1:1) and nish the purchasing process of both services

Test results

All the participants were able to finish the tasks without getting stuck.

Three of the participants had no confusion during the task and were able to complete the tasks smoothly.

Two of the participants were confused between the “Service” page and “Shop” page. They were expecting to find the courses under the “Shop” page so they browsed around the website before finding the course and purchasing it.

The naming of the buttons throughout the pages should be reconsidered according to their specific function.

iterations

Based on the feedback I changed the naming of the “Services” and the “Shop” for more clarity on what each page contains and the naming of the buttons according to their specific function in the page.

before & after

Final Product

client’s feedback

After finalizing the high-fidelity wireframes, I presented the final product to the client. The client was pleased with both the design and the research findings related to her niche. She is now working on designing the courses based on the research results and user personas. Once the courses are completed, we will add the necessary screens and make any required changes before handing it over for development.

next steps

Course Design

The client will be designing products based on the research findings, focused on her newfound niche and target group.

Additional Screens

After the courses are ready to publish, I will make the necessary changes on the website related to these new services.

Developing

After the product is completely finalized including the website and the course design, the project will be handed over for development.

takeway learnings

Research is KEY

Through this project, I learned that research is a critical step not only in UX design but also in product design as a whole. It lays the foundation for building and developing both a successful business and a user-centered design.

AI as a tool

AI has been an invaluable tool in helping me write copy with a professional tone. I will soon be exploring ways to optimize the use of AI in UX design.

Through Feedback We Grow

Being open to feedback is crucial for my growth as a designer, and I am committed to continuing this practice.