Surfacing high-impact resources so Instructional Coaches get the tools needed to effect change
Instructional Coaching Group provides research-based professional development for teachers and coaches all over the world.
The Brief
- Identify the most valuable website features from the user’s perspective
- Analyze the overlap of user needs, business goals, and feasibility
- Propose a new feature or UX improvement that meets a user need and aligns with business goals
My Process
Empathize
I conducted interviews to gather user experiences, then identified user needs, motivations, and frustrations
Define
Led by user insights, I defined high-impact problem statements and HMW statements that guided the design process
Ideate
I sketched multiple concepts to determine the best way to implement these new web features
Prototype
I developed working prototypes for a new user journey featuring a redesigned homepage and user-specific landing pages
Conducting Interviews to Collect First-hand Experiences
I conducted interviews to gather user experiences, then identified user needs, motivations, and frustrations.
Tapping into ICG’s directory of “Learning Partners” — previous clients who opt-in to participate in future research projects — I recruited 10 participants representative of ICG’s target audience.
Guiding Questions
User-testing and interviews were focused on answering five questions:
- What were the most valuable tasks being performed on the site?
- How easily could users complete these tasks on the site?
- What was the minimum information required for users to complete these tasks?
- What thought patterns could we identify in user-testing? How could we learn from these patterns to make the site more intuitive?
- How did users feel about their experience using the site?
Gleaning user insights to define reality and set goals
Frustrations:
- Navigation is confusing and content feels hidden
- Content organization is unintuitive
- Lack of search function on the siteTakes too long to find what users need
- Resources aren’t tagged in the resource library
Motivations:
- Access free resources to share with teachers and other coaches
- View cost and schedule for upcoming training opportunities
- Share a sense of community with others in their role
- Read the latest research on Instructional Coaching
Needs:
- A fully developed library of resources with tags and filters
- Intuitive and consistent organization of website content
- A simpler site navigation
Defining the problem to ensure that all outcomes are user-centered
Users looking to learn more about ICG’s offerings are uncertain where to go first on the homepage. This makes them feel lost and confused, leading to frustration and a high likelihood that they’ll leave the website.
Using “How Might We” statements to imagine ideal outcomes
How might we organize content so users can quickly find and share the resources that are most-applicable to their role?
Testing solutions with ideation and prototyping
How might we organize content so users can quickly find and share the resources that are most-applicable to their role?
By providing user-specific landing pages with curated content for each role in ICG’s audience, we can connect users to the content that’s most helpful to them, increasing resource downloads and workshop registrations.
I ideated to determine an improved user-journey that would allow users to navigate the site by role; when a role button is clicked, the user arrives at a landing page full of curated content for their needs.
Mind mapping
Prototyping a new hero section featuring an invitation to “Choose Your Role”
Low-fidelity prototypes help the design team visualize and share new features with stakeholders, without getting too far “into the weeds.” These prototypes are a key part of the convergent process, where new ideas are focused until they are as simple and effective as possible.
Prototyping a “Choose Your Role” module that could be employed throughout the site
Prototype of a user-specific landing page
High-fidelity prototypes of the new homepage and role-specific landing pages
Prototypes of entire pages are helpful for demonstrating the user’s journey down a page as well as between connected pages. After creating high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, I created working prototypes in Webflow. Although I didn’t have access to further user-testing in this project, this would have been a great opportunity to perform user-testing and determine whether or not the proposed solutions were worth developing further.
Whereas the homepage is a"collector" page, the role-specific landing pages are "converter" pages—these pages have a a singular task: connect users to the training or resource they need as quickly as possible, successful converting leads and furthering ICG's mission.
Developing a Custom Resource Library
As the most-mentioned feature in user interviews, the Resource Library presented a big opportunity to positively improve user experience and promote deeper engagement. Using a combination of Webflow’s CMS and custom javascript, I reengineered the database’s backend and simplified the front-end UI, leading to a smoother experience that’s up-to-par with web standards.
Before, navigating was difficult without knowledge of the company and its services.
The original site navigation was organized from the perspective of the business, rather than being informed by the user’s perspective. Additionally, the navigation made use of multiple levels and drop down menus, which slowed users down in their search for training and resources.
I streamlined navigation to make sense from the user's perspective.
I redesigned the navigation to streamline all content through the lens of user roles. When a user hovers over a menu item such as Professional Development, they now see three choices: Instructional Coaches, Teachers, and Administrators.This reduction in choices allows users to quickly discern the site’s structure and find information that pertains to their needs quickly and efficiently.
Outcomes
Highly valuable user insight was gleaned in this project, as well as three viable solutions for improving the website. ICG’s design and marketing teams can now make decisions informed by user data, helping the company develop its website in ways that meet user needs and align with business goals. The working prototypes created in this project are ready to be developed and implemented into the website, where further user data can be collected measure the impact these new features have.
This project resulted in:
- Identification of user motivations, frustrations, needs
- Defined problem statements and HMW statements
- More intuitive user journey
- Newly created Resource Library offering hundreds of resources in an accessible way
- Redesigned site navigation to make sense from the user’s perspective
Challenges
My biggest challenge for this project was playing the role of interaction designer while also participating as the product and project manager. I found myself discovering more possible solutions than the project could allow time or resources to fully explore. In the future, I would like to test the working prototypes I developed with a group of users, improve upon the concepts, and implement them into the live website.