Improving user engagement and returning users for an Australian Comparison Website
This research project with Finder.com.au was my 9-weeks project with Harness Project. During the whole period of the project, my mentors Nathanael Coyne and Stephen Collins guided me in experiencing working as a UX designer.
This case study covers the research brief, personas, user research, hypothesis, low fidelity & high fidelity wireframe, usability testing and key challenges faced during the project.
Introduction
Finder.com.au is a financial comparison website. They compare financial related matters including credit cards, home loans, health insurance, car loans, credit score and many more. Finder.com first started in Sydney Australia in 2006 before expanding to other regions such as the UK and New Zealand.
The Problem
Finder’s mission is to help customers make better decisions on everything. A large focus for Finder is to increase the number of returning users to the website. Return visitors are a more efficient means of improving customer lifetime value. To retain and increase the number of users logging in, on their website. They approach us (Harness Project and my team) and are looking to listen to the different solutions that we can offer them.
The Users
Based on the user research and from the product manager interview discussion, Finder.com target users include a wide range of people from people who require financial assistance, couples who are looking to set up their family, tech-savvy users and many more.
Role
As a UX designer, I was tasked to gather requirements from the product manager, conduct user interviews and research, provide various output mediums such as user personas, user journey map, wireframes, lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes. Tools used during the process include; Trello, Slack, Sketch and Zoom video call for daily meetings.
The whole project timeline lasted for 9 weeks, it was my first time working as a UX designer and remotely in Australia. During the project, most of us were new to the UX terminology, studying UX online and working on the finder project at the same time.
The first phase of the project was done in a group effort. We first conducted an interview with the product manager to gather more insights on how finder.com is performing currently.
Afterwards, we conducted user research with a diverse group of people who use finder.com or uses comparison website daily. We shared the data amongst ourselves and synthesize the information into data for everyone to understand.
Sounds convenient but I would trust a specialised comparison site — Amely, a housewife
The second phase of the project was done individually, with the data gathered, I produce two user personas based on common behaviours of the data demographics. Then, creating a customer journey map for the first persona.
Based on the information gathered, I hypothesise some of the key pain points that users were struggling within the finder.com website.
- Users only see what’s there. User is unlikely to explore the entire website if there is hidden functionality.
- Users are less focused as an extensive amount of information is available on the website. Users become less focus and are prone to jump to multiple tabs.
- Users don’t know the true potential of finder.com.au. They do not know all the functionalities integrated into the system, they would only learn and use what they need and leave the rest untapped.
Sketches of concepts and ideas that came in my mind to help improve the website. This was my first rough sketches drawn on paper.
Next, I use the mac application ‘Sketch’ to create a high fidelity prototype of the website shown below. The prototype was also interactive in which the users were able to click on the links.
My proposed design would make the homepage more personalized with questions aiming to connect users on their queries.
Different categories of the finder would be separated using blocks to prevent overwhelming information in comparison websites.
My proposed design would also require users to sign up and log in to Finder account to access more features available from Finder.com.au.
From the login page, users will be greeted with an interactive dashboard including all the features of Finder. They will be news and updates to customize to every user.
FINAL PRESENTATION
The final week, my colleagues and I presented our findings to the product manager which included a collective research report of all the findings, my solution which summarise the key task undertook and insights. I presented my part of the user interviews, user persona, customer journey map, wireframes, clickable prototype and usability testing.
Updates
As of 15 October, Finder.com.au has updated their website accordingly including adding some personalization text on the front home page and creating a member-only benefits ad requiring users to sign up and log in to access more features
