From Bare Essentials to Impactful Design: A case study on Pachira.ca — Social Enterprise
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Pachira.ca — which is an online get-discounts-to-support-charities social start-up — came to me with a big problem: their website wasn’t engaging visitors, which led to minimal subscriptions. Upon careful examination, I found several design issues and made initial suggestions, after which Pachira engaged me for end-to-end design revamp — from user research to new design prototyping and user testing, and everything in between.
Identifying Problems
The core problem with the Pachira website was low focus on user experience. User engagement was impeded by clunky design components that gave little sense of flow to the visitor, which resulted in distraction and abandonment. Overall, there was a dire need to reconfigure content structure and amplify visual appeal of the website.
My team and I also uncovered other problems in the design that limited Pachira’s capabilities, such as:
- Ability to seamlessly partner with retailers and merchants;
- Building trust with potential service users;
- Presenting information in an engaging manner and with clarity;
- And few others.
The most important problem that we needed to address was how to help visitors understand the value proposition of the Pachira service and its website.
Getting to Work
By the time we were done making a list of things that needed changing after our heuristic evaluation of their existing website, we knew we had our work cut out for us. We also knew that, to address the key issue mentioned above, we would need to use the website contents to clearly present the unusual value inherent in using the service.
Understanding the User
“When you want to build UX design, talk to potential users” —a key aspect of our Design thinking.
Using this mantra of ours, we conducted 8 detailed interviews with Pachira users to understand their expectations and what they thought needed to change or added.
We also conducted a thorough survey of service users. 30 people participated in the survey and helped us determine what changes they’d want to see in Pachira’s design.
Idea Creation
It was now time to find ideas that would help us address all the problems we had identified. Having done a comprehensive competitors analysis at this point, I had a few valuable ideas in mind.
We ran a series of exercises that I usually lead with my team to increase the frequency and quality of ideas for re-design projects like this one.
Setting Targets
By this time, we had a clear idea of what we needed to do, thanks to our detailed customer journey map and plenty of knowledge of what the service’s target audience wanted to see in a service like Pachira’s.
We set up our targets, I divided tasks, and we started bringing on the changes we’d planned:
- Amplify Pachira’s brand impact visually to reduce bounce rate.
- Build emotional connection with potential subscribers with visuals.
- Simplify delivery of critical information related to discounts over a period.
- Let users clearly know what their contributions are amounting to.
Using Tried Tools and Industry’s Best Practices for UX Design
We used several tested techniques and tools to build a thorough understanding of the problems and their potential solutions. Apart from the customer journey map, we built a lean canvas, a value proposition canvas, target user profiles, several design concepts for each page of the Pachira website using wire-frames, and a detailed visual identity for the brand.
We then wanted to test our new design and conducted a variety of process tests to measure ease for the user and time taken to complete a process.
Delivering a Truly UX Focused Design
As a result, we designed simpler pages each of which had a clearer design focus and a prominent CTA. The website now presents the value proposition clearly in a flow that engages visitors and encourages conversion. The user dashboard helps users learn more about what their contributions are doing for their chosen charities.
A complete Case Study for Pachira Social Enterprise can be found on my portfolio website: https://hasnainbakhtiar.com/project-pachira
