Client's need
The Youth Development Administration (YDA) is a department under the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. YDA offers many activities and subsidies for young talents. Our client, who was in charge of the long-term strategy for the organization, brought us a simple request:
"We want to increase young people's interests in the services offered by YDA."
Design opportunities
The goal appeared to be straightforward. However, when we applied the 5A marketing framework as our first step, we quickly realized that since we could only make changes in certain part of the user journey, there were numerous aspects beyond the scope of this project.
01 "Boost Interest" without altering the current marketing approach
Most users discovered YDA's projects through social media and referrals, yet this was beyond our reach.
02 No previous user study, nor Google Analytics.
YDA didn't have much channel to know the user, meaning we had to build our user research plan from scratch.
Since we could only touch on the website, we figured to focus on providing straitforward and necessary information, thus when users land the page, they'd naturally know their goals -- to sign up for resources that match their needs.
Project goals
01 How might we help user to find the projects that fit their needs?
We wanted to ensure that users could effortlessly identify projects that resonate with them, and take action to sign up for projects. So our first goal was to optimize the relevance and standardize the information.
02 How might we encourage exploration on YDA's website?
Additionally, since we couldn't control how users initially land on the website, we'd also like to enhance their experience after they arrived by encouraging users to explore the site.
Design Process
In summer 2020, we ran through an end-to-end process from research, design to usability testing and handed in a redesign proposal.
The proposal was later approved by the Director General of YDA, and implemented by a web development agency. In this phase, we joined the team as external consultants and cooperated with the agency on the evaluating and testing of the website.
User Research
Contextual Inquiry
To better understand how young users search for resources and make plans for projects and events, we asked the interviewees to demonstrate their typical use of their Facebook feeds, planners, and calendars. After the observation sessions, we then conducted a short interview to further understand their motivations, problems, and goals.
Card sorting
From our preliminary examination of YDA's website, we noticed that the information structure in navigation was a significant issue. As shown in the video, even for options on the same level, their subcategories were different, which made it difficult to find information.
During interviews, we wrote each category on pieces of cards and asked the interviewees to sort and label them into groups. This way, we could collect users' opinions on what the information architecture should be like.
Usability testing
Lastly, we created some tasks and invited the users to complete them on YDA's existing website to identify problems throughout the exploration and registration process.
Research Outcomes
01 It's hard for user to find things they want
The two navigation systems in the website are confusing, and the information on the home page is not up-to-date.
02 Some people like to plan their schedule ahead
Students typically plan their summer and winter vacations during the middle of the semester, and student groups also require advance planning. Therefore, it would be beneficial for them to have access to projects and events in chronological order.
03 Services offered by the government are attractive, but the website should avoid propaganda
People trust those projects because they believe in the government's reliability and the cost of joining projects is usually low. Yet, they often view government-provided information as propaganda, leading them to ignore things on the website.
04 There was no guideline for content on the website
The YDA's website was actually managed by representatives from different teams inside YDA. Without a guideline, the imformation on the website thus became disorganized and came with many forms.
05 The website lacks organization and call-to-action
Information architecture is confusing, even when users find the activities they are interested in, they can't find ways to register.
Concept
New user journey to support two types of user
We consolidated the research findings and developed two personas. Subsequently, we designed new user journeys that address the challenges faced by these two types of users.
New Comer
This kind of users haven’t used the website before. They heard that YDA offers many resources from friends but are’t sure what to expect. Their first impression after entering the website hence became crucial. We wanted to ensure that they knew there were many interesting resources to explore.
The Planner
These users typically have a clear idea of what they want. Therefore, our responsibility is to provide them with clear, easily understandable information and a seamless experience for project sign-ups.
Exploration for new comer; Timeline for planner
For new comer, we focused on helping them understand what YDA had to offer. We've also improved navigation and added a banner to the home page to encourage exploration throughout the website.
For people who like to plan ahead, in addition to displaying project durations on the thumbnails in the Project Category Page, we introduced a Timeline Page. This allowed users to explore projects throughout the year.
