May 2019 – July 2019
UX/UI Design, Prototyping
Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator
Aspira is a design school in Chennai (India) specializing in User Experience Design and Graphic Design which strives to produce the best designers in the industry.
Before the design refresh, the site was getting meagre traffic which meant that fewer students getting enrolled and hence less revenue and popularity. My main objective was not only to provide them with brilliant web design but also to attract more potential students.
The redesign resulted in a 65% increase in site traffic and a 30% increase in the number of student intakes.
I conducted interviews with 5 potential students and had several conversations to give clarity to the problem.
I then began to map the observations from user interviews in order to pinpoint the underlying themes and trends from research. It really helped me get a broader picture of the challenge at hand. Using countless post-its, markers, and a whiteboard, I constructed the affinity diagram below.
Most of the target audience taking the course were students who were still in college, but some were full-time employees who were planning to switch careers to UX.
Hence, the target users were in the age group between 18 – 35 years.
As a result, users were not getting the proper and thorough information they need to make a decision. the best course.
So the team decided to add dedicated pages to each function and make it a full-fledged site. A dedicated course page, contact page, student's projects page, a blog and an about page were added to provide more detailed information.
We came up with a sitemap to show the hierarchical structure of the website. They are an important step of the user-centred process as they ensure content is in places users would expect to find it.
During this design phase, I had to come up with many ideas for the layout which led to several design iterations.
The best layout was a structured card-style layout with a balance of text and illustrations to create interest in the user and hence keep him engaged while also providing him with the required information.
Apart from the changes in the card layout, I also added the about page and created a dedicated page for contact, which was missing before. Students wanted to know about the institute before investing in it and hence adding those pages was quintessential.
The end result was a carefully executed design with improved usability crafted with the results obtained from user research and testing which ultimately helped me provide a great site experience for the students.
During the course of this project, I came across a lot of situations and experiences to learn from. This project helped me understand more about the educational industry and that design must always be intentional. It indeed was a great learning curve for me in my UX career. I’m extremely happy that not only me but even my client was satisfied with the end product and results.
Since I was the only designer in this project, I had to take care of the whole design phase from research to the final prototype with feedbacks for every iteration. I had an amazing opportunity to work with a fantastic team of talented people coming from all disciplines.
If I had a time machine and were to go back in time to make changes in the project, I would definitely put more work on the illustrations and the design elements to suit the school more. It was a fun roller-coaster ride from a blank canvas to a functioning website along with a few bumps on the way. 😜
