Learning About the Business

In order to gain a better understanding about Presently’s platform, we researched the company and dissected the information deck provided from our client. Because our work was remote, I also prepared questions to ask our client prior to our video conferences so that no questions would be missed.

What we learned

• Presently was created as a solution to tackle clutter and waste gathered from excess amount of toys.

• Since waste accrued from toys was one of their biggest concerns, their main user was at first the “millennial parent” however, they now want to scale the platform to include all adults.

• The current onboarding for the “parent” and “adult” experiences are currently indifferent and they hope to differentiate the experiences somehow.

• Kids are also involved via the parent host-portal and Presently wants us to account for the “kid experience” as well.

Identifying Key Issues

To identify key issues, we conducted a heuristic evaluation using Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics. We went through the tasks of onboarding, sharing, and contributing to document the encountered issues that violated the heuristics and usability qualities. The most crucial violations found were inefficiencies within the onboarding, which required information users may not have yet, and the lack of an account creation for hosts.

Go to the comprehensive heuristic evaluation

Understanding
Competitors

We wanted to see how Presently compared to other competitors offering similar services on the market. A team member conducted a competitive and comparative analysis comparing features offered or not offered on Presently’s platform.

Stand Out From The Competition

This analysis further solidified the need for an account creation; All 9 competitors included an account for the host. This also highlighted how unique Presently’s mission for a “single better gift” really is. The company’s focus on conscious consumerism, sustainability and charitable giving is something that really makes the company stand out and incorporating that more into the website and brand identity will certainly distinguish them from other competitors.

Go to the comprehensive feature competitive analysis

Narrating The Onboarding

Our client emphasized the lack of “joy” from the “host” side, and even provided examples of onboarding experiences their company envied. My team member then created a separate onboarding C&C analysis comparing similar competitors onboarding experiences.

From this, we learned incorporating features like icons or pictures and adding some personalization into Presently’s onboarding could really make it feel like an experience rather than just filling out a form.

Go to the comprehensive onboarding competitive analysis

User Interviews

Hearing from users about their experiences with gifting and group-gifting practices, and what they expected a platform with these services to provide was key. We conducted 9 user interviews where we spoke to both parents and non-parents. It was important to interview both types of users since we wanted to broaden Presently’s platform experience to appeal to both parents and adults alike.

In addition, we also assigned tasks where users examined the homepage, went through onboarding, shared the created group gift, and sent a contribution.

uncovering key insights

We knew what our client wanted, but we had to confirm what the user’s need. Synthesizing our data through affinity mapping confirmed issues our client addressed while also revealing new insights. We found that many of the pain points user’s were experiencing could be resolved if users had an account, something our client wanted to avoid.

Go to the affinity map

meet The Minimalist, bessie

Drawing from our research findings, I created a user persona, Bessie. Bessie will represent Presently’s ideal “host” and “contributor.” We referenced Bessie throughout our process to understand how our design decisions would best help the user.

Bessie’s journey

To serve as a visualization of the process Bessie goes through with the current Presently site, my team member created a journey map. This mapping emphasizes Bessie’s pain points during onboarding and also when she is unable to share/edit the created event via the provided portal.

Ideate & Design

narrowing our focus

Combining all our data from our heuristic violations, affinity mapping, and Bessie’s journey map, we created a list of the main issues encountered. Once we had that list of problems, we then created a list of features that we believed would solve those pain points. I then took those features and created a feature prioritization chart. This charting helped us to identify which features we would prioritize:

• Account creation

• Account dashboard

• Editing capabilities within the account

• Sharing features within the account

• Creating a new group-gift within the account

Go to the feature prioritization chart

analyzing the current flow

I first created user flows for the host and the contributor side of the current site. Combined with our research data, this allowed us to clearly mark which areas needed improvements for the redesign.

Go to the previous user flow diagram

faced with challenges

In redesigning the “contributor” flow, I designed a user flow that would guide the user from an RSVP modal form straight into the payment form while keeping the user on the same page after contribution.

Our team had a tough time reaching a compromise regarding the redesigned “host” user flow. 

We had two main issues of concern:
1. Deciding which information to be asked during the onboarding
2. Placement of the sign-up screen (before, during, or after onboarding questions)

led to inconclusive results

In an attempt to address the sign-up screen placement and disagreements between our team, we looked at other competitors and did another C&C analysis comparing placement of the account creation screen.

We found aspirational crowd-funding sites like “GoFundMe” to have the account creation before any onboarding, while other direct competitors had the account creation screen during the onboarding or as the final screen after the onboarding. The results were therefore inconclusive from this analysis and we would have to further test our decisions.

Streamlining the user flow

Multiple rounds of testing and iteration would lead us to this new “host” user flow. I created this user flow which includes an onboarding broken up into 8 easy to digest screens, with an account creation screen being the last, and sharing functionalities within the platform.

Enhancing the Style, Maintaining the Brand

During our testing, we received positive feedback regarding the way the site looks and feels. While we received positive feedback from users about the look and feel of the site, we also discovered that the page was overwhelmingly kid friendly. When I created this style guide, in an effort to keep the “joy” users felt, I kept the main color palette (purple and yellow), but also added some pastels to help ease the contrast of the previous colors. I also added green as a symbol of nature and the environment which we found to be in line with Presently’s branding regarding conscious consumerism and the environmental impact from consumerism.

Initial Sketches

The majority of our work consisted of creating brand new sets of screens within the onboarding, which was previously blocks of text, and an entire account dashboard with editable actions and features. We conducted multiple design studios taking the most compelling sketches and transformed them into a streamlined set of screens via low fidelity.

Test & Iterate

low-fi testing; not what we expected

We got to work and digitized our low-fidelity sketches. Using our low-fidelity wireframes, we conducted 5 moderated usability tests.

The test results were staggering. By reducing the amount of information asked during onboarding (previously 15 to 6 questions) by too much, it appeared to leave all tested users not realizing that they had just created a hosted gift. After the users finished onboarding, and landed on the account dashboard, users were confused about how to continue or proceeded to “create a new group-gift,” even though they had already done that during onboarding.

back to the drawing board

After our first round of low-fi testing yielded poor results, it was back to the drawing board. Our team was in conflict when it came to the placement of the sign-up screen being placed before or after onboarding. To resolve this, we decided for our next round of testing, we would test half our user’s with the account creation screen before onboarding and the other half after the onboarding.

I iterated based on the results of our low-fi tests and created our medium-fidelity wireframes. With our mid-fi frames, we conducted 5 more usability tests.

Key changes

• Increased the amount of questions asked during onboarding (6 to 11 questions)

• Combined 2 different screens from our previous iteration on the host portal to help with scaling and efficiency

• Added a confirmation modal after onboarding to provide feedback that a gift has been created

• Switched to top navigation instead of side to help with labelling and visibility

what we found

• Although the increase in information asked during onboarding fixed the previous issue, which left users not realizing that they had created a gift, we now had too many questions asked. We still had to find the perfect medium.

• We had inconclusive results regarding the sign-up screen placement. Users stated that they felt indifferent. We realized since users were not presented with both flows during our test, the test results were therefore invalid.

we pivoted our approach

After our research and test results regarding the placement of the account creation were left inconclusive, we decided to conduct 4 additional A/B tests. We had each user go through both onboarding flows.

THE RESULTS

Hi-fidelity prototype

Based on our research findings and tests, we were able to create a minimal viable product that eliminated points of friction found in the previous onboarding and a seamless host/contributor experience which helped to meet Presently’s business goals.