Country House Concierge
THE TEAM
Myself and two other team members as collaborative UX Designers
PROCESS
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Heuristic Analysis
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C&C Analysis
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Industry Research
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Affinity Mapping
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Design Studio
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Userflow
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Usability Tests
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Prototyping
TIMELINE
6 Week Sprint
DELIVERABLE
A website redesign enhancing navigation intuitiveness, user trust, and emphasizing company credibility
THE CHALLENGE
Our client's business, The Country House Concierge, primarily received inquiries via phone calls, while the website lacked traction.
We sought to understand why users preferred calling with questions instead of seeking answers on the website.
The Country House Concierge provides custom concierge & personal assistance services to clients across Shelter Island and Hamptons, NY. These services range from event planning to Airbnb cleaning to travel arrangements - all aimed to service the elite occupants, vacationers, and locals in the area.
Our client asked us to redesign their website to allow their clientele to use it as a resource to reduce user confusion. This would enable website visitors to effectively use the website without calling the business phone too frequently with questions, and ultimately allow the business to save a great deal of time.
To start, we set out to understand who the target audience was, and why the Country House Concierge's users preferred to call instead of utilizing the website.
THE DISCOVERY
We began our research with interviews...only to pivot our strategy due to a lack of interview participants & a tight deadline.
USERS:
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Valued assistants they could rely on and trust
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Wanted to be "in-the-know" without having to do their own research
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Did not want to be stressed out by small things
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Did not have a lot of spare time
But the most prominent and recurring themes from our research revealed that people mostly valued trustworthiness.
THE DEFINITION
Outsourcing articles and blogs combined with online testimonies, we found that users mostly valued trustworthiness.
Putting their feedback together, we made a persona to synthesize and communicate our users' thoughts.
Then, we generated a problem statement to summarize Hellen's main concerns and needs for a concierge service.
THE PROBLEM
Hellen is seeking a trustworthy service that can efficiently handle minor tasks, streamline her daily schedule, and provide her with insights into the best local attractions and activities.
Therefore, Hellen can rely on her assistant and allocate her time more effectively toward her higher-priority responsibilities.
After identifying Hellen's problem, we were still stuck with finding a tangible solution -- how do we address Hellen's concerns and needs throughout The Country House Concierge's website? We started asking ourselves, "How might we" (HMW) questions to begin brainstorming potential solutions.
1
HMW design an intuitive search functionality that allows Hellen to quickly find the services she needs and the information she seeks?
2
HMW ensure that the service offers transparency, giving Hellen confidence in choosing the right services for her needs?
3
How might we help Hellen trust her concierge service?
Asking ourselves HMW questions gave us a bigger picture of what a few solutions could look like. This helped us put our questions onto paper and start sketching in a design studio - aka a brainstorming sketch session. After a few sessions of working independently, we regrouped at the end of our design studio and reviewed our proposed user interface solutions.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
REASONS
Interactive booking calendar
Client reviews
Main and sub-navigation
Revised copy
Confirmation page
Call to action (CTA) buttons
Frequently asked questions
Newsletters
>
Streamline booking process for users
Encourage validity & reliability
Organize categories of services
Clarify services offered
Reaffirms booking request to reduce user confusion
Clarifies website purpose & leads user to solution
Reduces user confusion
Provides updates, events, and news to encourage credibility
THE SOLUTION STATEMENT
The Country House Concierge's revised website is designed as an intuitive search interface that enables users, like Hellen, to effortlessly find trustworthy concierge and personal assistant services, as well as relevant information about local attractions.
Additionally, we added main and sub-navigation, client reviews, revised copy writing, and consistent CTA buttons to promote reliability and clarity around the company's services to reduce users' confusion.
THE DESIGN
After evaluating The Country House Concierge's UI challenges, we made numerous UX design alterations, including a revised site layout, improved copywriting, and implemented site navigation options.
BEFORE
AFTER
CHANGES MADE
Home Page
Updated Banner
1
Added Navigation Bar
2
Added Call to action
3
