Project Page - SpotHero UX Overhaul

View project role and accomplishments summary

The Opportunity

As the company grew from a small, engineer-designed company to a larger, UCD-focused company with an improved UX, their marketing website and native app needed complete refresh and cohesion to create and reflect the beauty and simplicity of the product, and to better serve their users' needs.

My Role

• UX / Product Design Lead
• Photography Creative Director & Manager
• UI / Visual Designer
• Interaction Designer
• Information Architect
• Test Facilitator
• Researcher
• Copywriter
• Product Management for UX Projects, initially
• Design QA
• Strategist
• Supervisor of Junior Contractor & Photographers

Constraints

• Budgetary and time constraints limited our amount of time and effort.
• As is true with most startups, there were resource constraints. I was doing both strategy and trench-work for marketing/branding and UX/Product design, as well as management of junior employees/interns/inexperienced teams.

Accomplishments

✓ Created all new and refreshed user experience for web (desktop and mobile) and native app (iOS and Android) based on data, research, and psychological principles. This included all wireframing, prototyping, UX and market research, UX product planning and documentation, visual design, data read, and testing strategy.
✓ Created refreshed and consistent UI kit and full visual design system, resulting in greater brand consistency, easier code implementation, consistent visual design experience for participants.
✓ Worked with an Agile Tech team, Product Director, internal departments, and external vendors to optimize and drive business decisions for our product.
✓ Provided Design ideation/workshops with the company to help involve internal employees with our Product vision
✓ Drove the integration of UCD processes and methodologies into the dev process. Provided research and UX leadership to help conceive innovative concepts.
✓ Learned a great amount about behavior change, psychological principles, and outcomes in general and in relation to parking and participant lifestyle needs through research, workshops, surveys, data read, and more.
✓ User tests were highly successful, from response by participants to task completion success and refinement focus.
✓ Designed and developed/coded live style guide and User Traits documents for communication of refreshed brand and best practices, resulting in greater efficiency and consistency
✓ Recruited/managed/coached jr designers, interns, photography contractors; creating onboarding and standardized processes for both
✓ Developed tests for usability studies and site optimization testing.

Customer, Market, and Product Research

I conducted our user research including a Heuristic Evaluation using an advanced heuristic evaluator methodology I developed that includes a Likert scale evaluation of usability principles and a final grade shown for each principle in easy chart form; Competitive Analysis showing strengths and weaknesses of competitors in our space with actionable takeaways, Customer Emotion Mapping overlayed with business needs and marketing plan, Pyschographic Studies in tandem with Kellogg University, guerilla style and remote unmoderated Usability Testing, heatmap integration and analysis, and Google Analytics data analysis.

Site and App-Mapping

Understanding the flow of current products to better identify how to optimize it

I created sitemaps and user flows for what was the existing desktop and mobile and native app experiences so we could see a birds eye of our pages. We were then able to remove unnecessary pages, refine flows, and understand how our users navigated through our products. This was later overlayed with our user emotion map.

Product Testing

I initially lead (and then later supported our Product Manager) and analyzed much of our post launch optimization testing through Optimizely and AB Tests, Crazy Egg heatmapping analysis, and user testing; and created actionable plans with the Product Manager to improve our product. We were able to learn important things about how users navigate and what they really care about.

Responsive Web & Native App Information Architecture

Sketches, Whiteboarding, Wireframes, and Prototypes help build the new experience.

I re-architected our experience using Balsamiq and Axure wireframes and animated prototypes.

I re-architected our native apps (iOS and Android) and re-designed our pages so that our responsive mobile pages and native app felt similar, optimized for the ergonomics of hand to mobile use, but were customized to their respective contexts.

Responsive Web & Native App Visual Design

Bringing it to life

I architected and designed our new product, including search pages, the redemption experience, checkout, and post-purchase optimization; as well as our Referrals program, Help Center, About pages, and more. I also directed a junior production designer and photographers who helped support the design effort along the way.

Photography Creative Direction

I directed and managed all photography for the organization.

I created the initiative to supply our users with updated photography that better reflected , so that parking locations were more recognizable and to increase engagement on our interface. I recruited and managed all of our contract photographers, managed our photo shoots, and created a new process for our sessions across the organization.

THERESACHARLESTON

SpotHero UX Overhaul & Optimizations