UX Research and Redesign | Psychology center Life in balance therapy
My Role:
Content Audit, UX Audit, User Interviews, Information Architecture, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Wordpress Development
Collaboration with: UI Designer, Wordpress Developer
Results: ​
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42% increased conversion rate
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Information findability increased from 2.9 to 4.8
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Perceived usefulness increased from 3.5 to 4.9
My Process for the Project
Project Background
Life in balance therapy is a psychology center in Toronto that work with people whose lives are limited by anxiety and other emotional and situational struggle. They offer a wide range of individual and group therapies and work with adolescents and adults individually and with families. The center already had a site but wasn't happy with it and wanted a redesign.
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To understand the reason for the site redesign and the goals that the client wants to achieve I conducted an interview with a client to know more about the specifics of the business, current and potential site users, current challenges and the desired impact of the site redesign.
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Turned out that the client liked the visual design of the site design, but had a feeling that the site is "somehow cluttered, there is too much going on and hard to find things". The users that are potential and existing clients of the psychology center were mostly coming from the referrals, not from the site.
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We have also looked at the competitors' sites together to identify what the client likes/doesn't like about them and why.
Goals for the redesign:
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Create a more friendly and approachable tone, look and feel
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Make all information is more findable and clear
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Increase conversion rate so more potential clients contact to know to learn more, schedule appointments or enroll in groups
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Make the website more useful for all visitors
Challenges and constraints:
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More team members will join in the future, new groups announcements, new articles/video content, that should be considered in the site structure
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Psychologists are not allowed to advertise their services and use client's reviews
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Psychologists must be very clear about the services they provide and their qualifications
Research plan
Problem:
How might we help psychology center potential clients make a decision to contact center specialists about individual sessions or groups after visiting the site?
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Research objectives:
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Understand the end-to-end journey of how and why people choose to contact psychologist/psychotherapist
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Identify any problems or barriers people encounter on the existing site when trying to decide if they want to contact a psychologist/psychotherapist
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Learn about any potential improvements in content, information architecture and interaction that might help their decision
Content Audit and UX Audit
During the Content Audit, I've created a Site map of the existing site as well as the Content analysis file and discovered that some content was already outdated /not relevant or missing.
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Banners for upcoming groups were outdated
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Some Information on group description was not relevant
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Information about the client's book and videos were missing etc.
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During the UX Audit and Heuristics Evaluation I've discovered some critical usability issues that could be obstacles in the user flow, for example:
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Contact forms didn't send info to the client due to code mistake
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Services didn't have a visible indication that they are clickable etc.
Site map before redesign
Analytics and Hypotheses
To create the first hypothesis I've looked at the Analytics and screencasts and discovered the drop-off points and click behaviour patterns, for example:
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94% of visitors drop-off after the first screen
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Only 14% scroll down the Home page
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Only 2% click on Services to know more
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Only 15% click to know more about professionals
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Visitors clicked around a lot and possibly were having trouble finding the needed information
Based on the previous steps I've formulated several hypotheses of the user challenges and possible areas for improvement:
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User flow may be confusing:
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The first screen doesn't provide the information about the center/professionals to grab the visitors' attention
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Banners about upcoming groups and blog posts are taking up space before the information about the center services/specialists
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Some of the Menu item names may not be consistent to the page content
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Content inconsistency may make it difficult to find information:
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Services page provide very little information about the services and it is not obvious that icons are clickable
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Information about the team is not enough to explore further
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Some content like sections and buttons are doubled through the pages that make visitors go in circles
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Some events have outdated dates that could create frustration and undermine trust
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Interviews and Usability Testing
The goal for the redesign was to make the website informative and useful for potential clients so they can make an informed decision to contact the center for further questions and/or appointment booking. Choosing a psychologist is a sensitive and very personal matter and is, of cause, strictly confidential. That is why I couldn't involve any past or current psychology center clients in usability testing and interviews. I decided to recruit people that had experience with psychotherapy before for themselves or their teens and would be open to sharing their experience of searching for and choosing a psychologist.
My main Interview research question was:
"How do people make a decision which psychologist they want to start therapy with?"
My main Usability testing research question was:
"Is the current site easy to navigate, informative and friendly to make a decision to contact center professionals?"
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Some Interview Insights:
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People have many questions about therapy (like "Do I really need it?", "How does it work?", "How long will it take?" but are often hesitant to ask them directly
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People would like to feel trust for a psychologist before they contact, and they look for it in a photo, video, articles etc.
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People may spend quite some time deciding to contact a psychologist (from a week to a month) and may visit the site several times, looking for tips and ideas
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The high importance of office location, look and feel for the decision
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People prefer to see that a psychologist is an expert in areas they want to work with
Some Usability testing insights
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People found the Home page confusing and hard to find the information about the team
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Main menu items sometimes felt inconsistent with the content of the pages
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People didn't feel they got enough information about center professionals to make a decision to contact
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People found it difficult to find out about services offered and clearly understand what they are about
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Contact form with the same question "Not sure where to start?" on every page felt too pushy and didn't encourage contacting
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"Free resources" page felt misleading as it mostly contained links to books to buy. Also, different sizes of book images created a false impression that some books were more important than others
Information Architecture, Prototyping and Usability Testing
Based on the insights from the interviews and usability testing results I've created a new Site map structure and interactive prototypes with the new Information Architecture design.
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Some of the changes included:
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Home page: reduced to one screen with clear information about the center and photos of team members
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Team page: included more information about the professionals
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Services page: clear services options and news to learn more about upcoming groups
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FAQ page: created as a separate page and included in the main menu
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Resources: clear headings and image structures and information about center director book
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New Site map v.1
Discovering Behaviour Types
After the User Interviews, I've discovered different separate needs that would suggest different behavior scenarios. Based on that I've created several users Behaviour Types:
Explorers
Those who haven't had a therapy experience and looking for information to decide if they want it
​Considering options
Those browsing lots of sites looking for a psychologist for themselves/their teens, looking for information to make a decision​
Looking for groups
Those who see the value of participating in groups/workshops and looking for interesting topics to attend
​Ready to contact
Those who were referred to the center/psychologist and looking for the best way to contact and ask questions
Mapping the User flow
Based on the main Behaviour Types I've created possible User flow, Prototypes and scenarios for new Usability Testing.
User flow for different scenarios
Some of the Prototypes for the Usability Testing
UX Writing
After several Usability Testings I've discovered that some the headings, menu items and button texts might be confusing for users. So I've made some UX Writing changes, for example:
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Contact form heading was the same on all pages => changed to several headings depending on the page content:
Contact form heading on all pages
Contact form headings on "Team page", "Services" page and "Contact" page
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Menu items names changed: Free Resources => Resources to be more consistent with the content, About => Team to improve the findability of psychologist's information:
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Buttons texts changed from "Learn more" => more personalized names depending on the content to improve user flow, Services descriptions changed to be more informative:
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"Services" before redesign (no buttons)
"Services" Prototype v.1
"Services" current version
Redesign results
I've implemented final designs on the Wordpress site with the following results:
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42% increased conversion rate
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Information findability increased from 2.9 to 4.8
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Perceived usefulness increased from 3.5 to 4.9
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First page part before
First page part after
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Team page part before
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Resources page before
Team page part after
Resources page after
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
Client's testimonial
I am not a technologically savvy person and I have very little time to devote to learning the skills I need. Working with Elena has relieved a tremendous amount of stress for me. She takes the time to look at my website from the perspective of the user and arrives at our meetings with ideas and options to ease user access and resolve other concerns.
Interpersonally, Elena is warm, engaging, respectful and professional. She is also incredibly creative, responsive, and organized - working with her is an absolute pleasure. I recommend her enthusiastically, without any reservation whatsoever!
Dr. Sheri Turrell,
PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Owner&Director of
Life and balance Therapy
Learnings and Next Steps
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I've understood the value of having a very detailed interview with the client about the current business and future plans for expansion or adding new services/content. That will allow planning a flexible structure with consideration for future changes. In the current case study, the psychological center added 2 more specialists and continue to announce new groups and events, as well as planning to expand videos and articles library.
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I've learned how important is to find out about any constrains (both legal and ethical) associated with the business when doing the Content Audit and planning. Psychologists in Canada have certain obligations and restrictions on how they present themselves in the public space and that needed to be the first step for Content Strategy planning.
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I am continuing to support the site, incorporating all the updates and improving user experience.
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