Equus Partners / Growth Team
Rebranding & revamping the website to enhance website desirability by 40%
Client
Academy Xi Project - Equus Partners, Melbourne
Role
UX Researcher, UX & UI Designer
Team
18 Designers
Timeframe
3 weeks
Mainly involved in
Desktop research, survey questions, competitor analysis, data synthesis, journey mapping, SEO, lead generation strategies, ideation workshop, storyboarding, wireframing, prototyping, and presentation
Project Background
Equus partners is a Melbourne-based business advisory that helps small businesses with accounting and taxation services. They want to be more than ordinary accountants in Australia and beyond. Since the owner is fascinated with the hospitality sector, he wants to focus his business on helping cafes and restaurants.
Equss Partners has already set up a brand bible and is renaming it to Growth Team and wanted us to work on revamping the website. However, we wanted to dive deep into his business needs and understand his customers to provide a better experience for both.
Project Objective
Investigating the challenges and opportunities Small and Medium businesses are facing to identify how to optimize Growth Team's digital/physical touchpoints for sustainable and successful conversion of new and existing clientele.
Problem Statement
After the user research, we were able to define the problem statement as "Small businesses feel that they have limited knowledge and expertise to grow their business and reach their goals. They are faced with a lack of support from standard accounting services and are unsure what help they need or how to find the right services for their unique needs."
Process
We followed Double Diamond method.
Discover
We started off with the Discover phase with our objective to understand the business and investigate the users and their interactions with the service provided by Equus Partners. We conducted desktop research, competitor analysis, and interviews with existing & potential clients to analyze the market.
I led surveys and sent out Google forms on various Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn groups. Due to limited time, we could not gather a significant amount of data, so a small team was deployed to gain insights from guerilla interviews with SMB owners.
Key Takeaways
In the desktop research, competitor analysis, and user interviews, we gained the following insights. These later helped us in shaping deliverables for the final version of the website.
Desktop Research
Top 3 Reasons SMBs Fail:
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lack of leadership, poor management, and/or no planning
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did not know how or did not do enough market research, marketing, or sales
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did not understand finance, relying on someone else to assess the company’s financial health, did not have the necessary financial skills to manage the company, and did not know how to fund company growth
Competitior Analysis
I co-led competitor analysis with another teammate. For our main research, we used 3 criteria to analyze competition such as target audience, services, and type of content on their websites. Below are the key insights:
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Social proofing: Client reviews and case studies will help build trust and authority of the brand
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Call to actions: Relevant and clear directions on how to get in contact and find out more
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Free content: in exchange of contact details to be able to build a customer base and soft nurturing leads
Interviews
We interviewed 5 existing and 13 potential clients;
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it was observed that businesses value an advisory that builds trust
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and that not only provides accounting but also other services like marketing, operations, etc,.
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Business owners expect clear communication without confusing them with industry jargon
Define
After the research, we synthesized the data; the affinity map and empathy map helped us find common patterns and themes. These helped us to articulate pain points and opportunities for our personas to better understand their journeys. We created 2 personas, one focusing on potential clients and another on current clients.
I created journey maps for both personas by identifying the pain points which led to discovering opportunities.
Meet Mel - A Potential Client
Mel's Journey
Microscopic view of Mel's journey
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Mel's journey begins with a need to start and expand her business but her current advisor is not fulfilling her business needs.
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She is overwhelmed with the situation. She doesn't know where to start and wants to find an advisor that can help with all her business needs.
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She is happy to have come across an advisory recommended by her trusted friends.
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She's again overwhelmed with the jargons used by the advisors and She is still uncertain about the service until she sees the result.
Meet Michael - An Existing Client
Michael's Journey
Microscopic view of Michael's journey
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He is happy with the level of service he receives, and he has full confidence in the advisory.
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Sometimes he is a little confused who he is working with as names change in who is signing off emails and he is surprised by the lack of transparency when additional charges are imposed for the services.
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However, he is happy with the staff.
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He wants to refer contacts but he is not fully aware of services offered.
Develop
After all the research, data synthesized, and knowing Mel and Michael's pain points, it's time to find the solutions. At this stage, we ideate through How Might We questions, by facilitating workshops.
Ideation
In preparation for the next design phase, we created How Might We statements.
I co-led an ideation workshop with 2 current and 2 potential clients with the objective to create user-centered solutions for personas by generating tangible features.
How Might We?
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Help small business owners find financial and business advice.
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Help develop trust between you and a business advisor.
With the generated ideas and concepts, we created a Minimum Viable Product matrix (MVP) to analyze the most beneficial solutions for the personas. We focused on the quick wins for designing the final solution.
Storyboard
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I co-created a storyboard with another teammate to visualize our concept and the overall journey of Mel
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The storyboard depicts a seamless journey from consulting the Growth Team to being part of their community and earning rewards for referrals.
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We used stroynet for illustrations. With the help of Equus Partners' brand bible, we carefully selected the colors to picturise Mel's story.
Deliver
During this stage, before jumping into the designs, we realized that we could take this process & development further than just the original website. That we could ensure our UX solutions seamlessly integrated and optimized the online touch points of a client's journey. We created a forecast to showcase the significance of SEO, lead generation strategies, a referral plan, and community-focused initiatives.
Forecasting
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Looking at the future trends of UX and how to maximize the potential of the website we looked into 5 key things. These initiatives are backed by research.
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I primarily worked on SEO keyword searches for blogs and lead-generation strategies to pull relevant clients. I found that having an automated campaign can yield prospective leads. Hence, I advised providing 2 chapters from the CEO's book for free in exchange for email addresses.
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For keyword searching, I used Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.
Lead Generation, Referral, & Community
We proposed ways Equus Partners can optimize their website and offer services based on research and trends.
Iterating the Prototype
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I co-led the design team and created pages in a way it is easy to follow and navigate and provides relevant touchpoints for better interaction.
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Strategically placed CTAs for not only generating leads but to have a memorable experience with the website.
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After 2 rounds of testing, we iterated the designs based on user feedback and increased the desirability of using the platform from 6.3 to 8.8.
7
Usability Tests
6.3/10
Desirability Score
6
Usability Tests
8.8/10
Desirability Score
Insights
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Readability size was not great
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Home page is pretty repetitive
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The home page needed to be broken up into sections.
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Users made mis clicks when navigating to the home screen
Iterations
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Used relevant font sizes to make it more readable
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Categorized the home page to improve navigation
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"Everything makes sense"
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"Overall the site was very easy to navigate"
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The website is very intuitive
Presentation
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Our team nominated me along with 2 more teammates to present the final solution.
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Although I was part of the end-to-end process, I presented the Deliver phase including user flow, storyboard, mid-fi testing with results, and iterated designs from a hi-fi usability study.
Our final solution is aimed at providing a long-lasting experience on the website for potential clients. Based on quick wins, we have strategically placed testimonials, a community section for clients, and a referral reward program. Additionally, the website with optimized content, CTAs, and imagery would garner relevant leads. For potential clients, the service design roadmap would build trust and confidence in Growth Team.
Final Solution
Key Takeaways
What I learnt
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Although we sent out a survey during the first week, we could not rely on the result due to insufficient responses; hence, we focused on qualitative research. I learned that things might not go as planned but as a designer, I should have a backup plan beforehand.
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Leading a team of brilliant minds is not easy as ideas and creativity often collide. Still, I learned to create a safe and comfortable environment for other designers to be heard.
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I had the opportunity to present the project along with 2 more teammates before the client and I got to repolish my presentation skills.
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I got introduced to several Figma shortcut keys.
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To offer help and check in on my teammates during critical situations.
If we had more time
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We would continue user testing
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We would also focus on mobile-friendly SEO.