UX Case Study: Making a digital experience for the only aquarium in Saudi Arabia
Providing Fakieh Aquarium with a revamped digital experience!
Project Goal:
Create an efficient website/app that not only fulfills our users’ needs but enhances Fakieh’s digital experience.
Project Scope:
When my group and I received Fakieh Aquarium as our brand, we began our research. I quickly realized what Fakieh was going for in their branding, they were an educational, entertaining, family-centered aquarium.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t incorporate all the features we wanted due to time constraints. Although I did do contextual inquiry, due to my colleagues’ location we couldn’t do as much as we wanted.
Role: This project was a team effort. Although my team and I contributed together on all aspects of our project, my main efforts were centered around C&C Analysis, MoSCoW, Contextual inquiry, designing our story boards, and drafting wire frames.
As a group, however, we all worked, collaborated, and modified everything together, and worked together every step of the way.
Tools:
Duration: 4 Weeks
Introduction: Imagine this. You finally have some free time and decide to take your family someplace you know they’ll enjoy: the aquarium. However, instead of smooth, no-interaction fish-gazing, you’re forced to stand in not one, but two, ticket queues and talk with the vendor. You enter the aquarium and notice congestion near certain tanks and finding information about the fish is too time-consuming.
After using our site, you won’t struggle with any of the problems listed above and you’ll have a smooth, enjoyable trip.
For: This project is my third submission for Misk’s UX Design Immersive program.
Design method
Methodologies: ( Business )
- C&C
- MoSCoW
Methodologies: (User Research)
- Screener
- User interviews
- Behavioral analysis
- Contextual inquiry
- Journey Map
Discover:
Generative research:
I began extracting all the information I could from Fakieh’s website.
Fakieh Aquarium is:
- the only public aquarium in Saudi Arabia
- it offers education and entertainment,
- it carries more than 200 species, including near threatened and vulnerable fish species
Their activities include:
- an aquarium tour
- a dolphin show
- 2 retail shops
- 3 different dining options
Research Goals:
Then, we moved on to our 5 Ws and the H:
Who: Families who interested in sea experiences
Why: to explore aquatic life and related-experiences available
Where: Ash Shati, Jeddah
When: whenever they want to do a sea-related activity with their family.
How: They go to a booth or the website to purchase a ticket
What: Families browse and then book the activities
C&C Analysis:
I started with the C&C and faced issues with finding local competitors due to Saudi Arabia only having one aquarium, so I expanded my search to include countries in the neighboring Gulf countries and global companies as well.
I stopped my search when we had 6 direct competitors and 1 indirect ones. We chose our direct competitor on the basis that they offered aquarium-related experiences and our indirect competitors based on the fact that they offer digital experiences.
I made sure to include features that followed Fakieh’s educational and entertainment goals such as whether they show the species available, the retail shops, and the gallery.
One of the issues I realized about Fakieh’s website is that they often put certain pages behind other pages in the footer, which made it hard for users to find specific information. Another issue was that they’re website was plainly outdated compared to their competitors.
Our best competitor is London Sea Life Aquarium due to them fulfilling nearly all of the experience-enhancing features .
Screening survey questions:
General Questions:
Gender, Age, Country region, Aquarium visiting frequency, why they went, and who they went with.
The eliminating question:
- Have you ever visited an aquarium? (No)
Contextual Inquiry
When I went to do my CI, I didn’t know if I was excited or nervous. I was holding my phone and recording my voice on one hand and trying to draw a map of the aquarium in the next. While doing it, I noticed my user’s emotions, hesitations, and body language. One thing I noticed that wasn’t even mentioned in our previous research was that some users struggled with the QR codes.
In short, these QR codes are available at almost every tank, and the way the user uses them is by
1. getting their phone,
2. opening their camera,
3. waiting for it to scan,
4. clicking the link,
5. then, reading the information
6. repeat for literally every other tank the user wants to know more about.
I’ll be discussing my idea in the “next steps” section of this Medium.
Another issue I noticed is that some tanks didn’t even have infographics. So, Fakieh’s thirsty-for-knowledge aquarium-goers aren’t even getting the full experience.
I really enjoyed the contextual inquiry because not only did it significantly quicken my understanding of the users’ pain, but I saw and understood things the users themselves didn’t notice and comment on in our research.
Interview Questions:
1- tell me about the last time you visited an aquarium?
1.2- What did you like about the experience?
1.3- what did you dislike about it?
2- What motivated to visit the and how often do you visit aquariums ?
3- Did you use any additional services or amenities offered by the aquarium (e.g., dining, souvenir shop)?
4- Which specific exhibits or attractions did you find most interesting or engaging?
5- Are you interested in attending any of the aquarium’s shows or special events?
5.1 — Do you usually use audio tours or guides when going to an aquarium?
6- Do you prepare before going to the aquarium?
6.1 — what did you use to plan your visit?
7- Have you used Fakieh’s website(website’s usability and navigation)?
7.1 — Did you find the information on the website helpful in planning your visit?
7.2 — Were there any difficulties or challenges you encountered while using the website or during your visit?
7.3 — What are the things that you wish the website had provided to enhance your experience?
8- What do you use to book shows or activities ?
9- What were your expectations before visiting, and were they met?
9.1 — what did you use to navigate through the aquarium?
User Interview and Affinity Map Key insights:
Persona
Get to know Daniah: Whenever Daniah’s in Jeddah, her kids’ interest in sea life and dolphins leads to her spending quality time with her family at Fakieh aquarium.
Due to Daniah not knowing about the website, she’s forced to stand in a long queues, and she has to spend time discussing with the vendor about basic information such as “which activities are available, any offers, etc”.
She is also disappointed by having to take out her phone and scan a QR code anytime her kids want to learn more about a display. Daniah and her family believe that an accessible and informative platform would greatly improve their experience.
MoSCoW:
Journey Map
After concluding my CI, I got to work on the journey map. I started by inputing the tasks the user did and what interactions they had, while highlighting the user’s moods and possible improvements. I gaged the user’s mood by reading his body language and occasional hesitations and immediately noticing what it was that was bothering him.
After having completed it, I decided to make a more interactive, visual journey map that’s similar to a storyboard.
When doing this journey map, I included findings from both my contextual inquiry and user research + findings. This map showed us where exactly the user struggled most, which is the second queue they had to stand in. Ultimately, for the beginning of the user’s experience when stepping into Fakieh’s premises, he isn’t pleased.
This visual storyboard is simply beautiful for making us really feel for our users. Here, they stopped becoming data and became families just wanting to enjoy their day out. When doing this storyboard, the user faces around 3 pain points: 2 unnecessary queues and constantly opening her phone for information.
Pain Points:
Based on our findings, these were by far the most common issues our users faced. Most of our pain points came from a technological POV, while 1 came from my CI in the aquarium itself.
Problem Statement:
Based on our key insights and contextual inquiry, we concluded that these were our persona, Daniah’s, main issues, and that without them she’d most likely have a smooth, enjoyable experience.
Design
Moscow:
After finishing from our persona, I moved on to doing the MoSCoW. I could easily recognize which features went where, however, I second-guessed where to put the aquarium-related features such as: “show species”, “retail shops”, and “gallery”. I know that these features aren’t just for aquariums, however, they do play a part in this aquarium’s activities.
Website or App?
So, initially after my CI, I was full-on convinced that we had to make an app: I had an envisioned a way that I knew would greatly enhance Fakieh’s digital experience, but also solve the users’ issues with the QR process. My reasons were that an app would facilitate the process of finding information, while providing easy booking access and ticket-scanning for the user.
However, I still knew that an app would be non-sensical due to the to fact our users would promptly delete it after one of their scarce visits to the aquarium. So, after me having convinced my team of making an app, our instructors gave us a lesson on choosing what type of platform we could choose and one of the options was a mobile website.
Immediately upon hearing those two words, I knew that our 4-day struggle was over, and we could wholeheartedly agree on which platform we’d use.
Solution:
Provide Daniah with a mobile website that would satisfy her criteria by providing information such as: opening hours, event availability and prices, crowded-ness level, and online booking (to avoid the queues). We’ll also provide accurate information and images about the species available.
Wireframe Sketches:
Site map
User Flow:
High-Fidelity Wireframes:
Deliver:
Usability testing
We noticed that most users tried clicking on the picture in order to head to the event page. Other users struggled with the ‘select your tickets’ feature as well.
Iterations
For this iteration, we changed the location and phrasing of the ‘tickets’ from the top of the navigation to be near the hamburger menu. Next, we added more information to the event exploration feature and showed the users the price, while also changing the placement of the description.
Here, we made the users’ ticket number start at 1 instead of 0.
Prototype:
https://vimeo.com/843676656?share=copy
Our prototype after the iterations + instructors’ feedback.
Next Steps:
One of the ideas I came up with was the Virtual Tour, which would have our users scan the first QR code they see, then our sensors would automatically detect which tank they were in front of, and it would proceed to either read out the detailed information for them or they read it themselves.
The issue this would solve would be some users’ issues with having to constantly get their phone, open the camera, be redirected to the specific tank’s page, and then repeat the process for each tank they see. This is a quick, efficient, and most importantly, immersive feature that would’ve set Fakieh apart from their competitors.
My Reflections:
Initially, I had managed to convince my group of making an app, however, after getting more information, I told them that we should backtrack and make a mobile website.
One of the things I learned is that when designing a product, it is vital to change strategies when I know a certain feature or idea isn’t going to work out.
One of the challenges was not having enough time to go all-in with the features because the “Virtual Tour” was something that I knew was good as soon as I thought of it.
Thank you to my group and instructors!
