THE CHALLENGE

Overview
Nord Anglia Education is a provider of international schools. They have over 70 private day and boarding schools which are located in 30 countries across America, Europe, China, Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East. They wanted a new global website that would showcase an exciting new visual identity that was flexible enough to express the uniqueness of each school as well as drive immediate conversions to application.

My role
I was contracted (3 months) as UX designer by MullenLowe London. Initially to work with their designer to create interactive tools concepts as well as design the website UI. This would be applied to wireframes and then several prototypes produced that could be remotely user tested on the target audience - parents from around the world . After testing, I would then debrief the company on my findings.

DESIGN

With a previous role of Interactive Art Director at the Guardian, I had a lot of knowhow in designing digital tools that would help, educate and delight users.
We worked on concepts that would elavate the website experience and capture their imagination as to what was possible.

We were sent brand assets and styling that the company had used for marketing material which we could adapt and grow for the website UI. 

DESIGN | WIREFRAMES

The signed-off site map, desktop and mobile wireframes were vast but very clear and an excellent starting point.

DESIGN | NAE BRAND ASSETS

The visual branding and graphical elements were playful and colourful and would form the basis of the new website UI. 

DESIGN | FINAL PROTOTYPE UI

The signed-off visual designs applied and ready to be turned into prototypes. I would produce an English language desktop and mobile prototype and that would be user tested with 10 sets of parents from UK, US, Thailand, Qatar and Mexico over a 2 week period. To add to the fun, I also built prototypes in the Chinese language which would be tested by a Chinese agency on parents in East Asia. The agency converted the English copy into Chinese for us.  
 

RESEARCH | INTERVIEW SCRIPT

Next action was to write the script and to gain clear objectives, I spoke to the client and product team to find out what they specifically wanted to know from the user and what tasks they would like ran in the sessions. Seeing if the user would and could find out more about the global NAE brand by linking out from a banner at the top of the website was something the client was really keen on, as was seeing how easily the user could find the fees calculator tool.
The primary task I set was to get the user to walk through each page and feature of the website (the clients called this journey 'the Golden Path') while I observed their behaviour and preferences, listened to feedback and improvement suggestions. I would also A/B test the homepage.

RESEARCH | USER TESTING SESSIONS

The testing participants were recruited from an agency and were the target audience for NAE - parents who were interested in a high quality education for their children from kindergarten through to secondary school. Each session would be remote and last an hour with project manager assigned as notetaker. After some background questions, the users could choose either the desktop or mobile prototype. Putting potential anxious testers at ease was key by reminding them the prototype was being tested, not them.
Clear communication from my side was essential too as language barriers could be a blocker on running a smooth test. The testing ran over a 2 weeks period and overall, the sessions went really well with great insights unearthed, no technical issues and most were completed within the timeframe.

SYNTHESIS

After the testing sessions were completed, the notetakers and myself got together for a summary catchup where we came to conclusions with our findings. We discussed what was the overall impression of the website was, what worked well/poorly, the problems and their severity and finally assign action items. From there, I would produce a debriefing report.

SYNTHESIS | SPREADSHEET 

The usability test notes spreadsheet with recording observations. Our English prototype tested really well with an average rating of 8.25 out of 10. The website structure, the Golden Path journey and the navigation were all pretty frictionless and we had a clear preference in the choice of the homepage. The interactive tools were well received but needed much clearer instructions on what they were and how to use them although the Spotify audio was a barrier and not many would use it. Parents found the fees calculator easily and thought it offered great value although it would be ofer even more if it had currency conversion. The virtual tour was seen positively by most of the testers. Regarding content across the site, the information was broken down well but there wasn’t enough of it. The at-a-glance points didn’t give the right level of information especially when portraying the strengths and values of the school. Photography needed to be more precise in context.

The biggest pain point was the Academics page and several parents mentioned there wasn’t enough content to differentiate the school. This page would require a rethink and needed much more depth and clarity. Users weren’t interested in learning more about the NAE global brand early in their journey which was no surprise as they wanted to explore the school information first. Having a link in the nav was a helpful suggestion rather than just at the top of the homepage.

The Chinese prototype tested well too, where the main pain points for most of the testers were imagery and copy. MullenLowe would continue to work with the Chinese agency to improve those aspects.

SYNTHESIS | DEBRIEFING REPORT

The report had a clear summary of what worked well and where there was room for improvement. I focused an overview, key findings and recommendations for all pages, as well as the Golden Path, navigation and interactive elements. The report was sent to the product team and the clients and we then held a debrief meeting to review the findings and to discuss what the critical next actions would be.

SYNTHESIS | PRIORTISE CRITICAL NEXT ACTIONS 

The critical next actions from the debrief meeting.