Website Redesign
Image from Consilience Coaching website
Image from Consilience Coaching website
Consilience Coaching
Consilience Coaching is a woman-owned business based in Minnesota specializing in integrated wellness, nutrition, and mindset coaching. This project evaluated the usability of the business’ marketing website.
My Role
UX/UI Designer • Researcher
Tools Used
Figma • Figjam • Google Suite • Squarespace • Zoom
Scope
February 2024 as part of the UX design program at Prime Digital Academy.
Methodology
Comparative Analysis • Heuristic Analysis • Usability Testing • Synthesis • Research Reporting
The Team
Megan Bergstrom • Madeline Nilan • Emma Broderick
The Problem
Does the website function well for its intended user group?
The Background
Consilience Coaching offers its clients an individualized approach to physical and mental wellbeing. Through movement, nutrition, life coaching, and mindset strategies, owner and coach, Emily Carlson, personally helps clients overcome life’s challenges and achieve their highest goals.
The Challenge
Our task was to evaluate the existing Consilience Coaching website in order to understand user pain points. The goal was to identify areas of opportunity and provide actionable recommendations to better attract and inform potential clients, while also encouraging lead generation and sales.
The Process
How should we approach the problem?
The Iterative Process
When working on Consilience Coaching, I implemented a three-stage strategy: discover, evaluate, deliver. This approach gave direction and focus to the project, while also allowing for movement and exploration between the stages.
Discover
What is Consilience Coaching?
Who are the users?
What else is out there?
Client Research
To understand the business concept behind Consilience Coaching, I explored the existing website and read through the client intake information. I learned that Consilience Coaching focuses on helping individuals build “resilience and ease” in mind and body through an integrated approach to wellness, offering personalized plans to support clients in reaching their physical, mental, and emotional goals.
Target Market
In order to identify the potential users of the site, I reviewed the target market information provided by the client. According to Consilience Coaching, the primary user groups fall into two categories: holistic health seekers and busy professionals.
Comparative Analysis
To understand how similar businesses digitally interact with their user groups, I did a comparative analysis of three other websites. I noted the commonalities and differences between all the sites, and identified which aspects worked well and which needed improvement.
Initial Goal: To identify pain points and areas of opportunity in the existing Consilience Coaching website in order to help wellness-seeking users gain the information and access they need to work with coach, Emily Carlson.
Evaluate
How is the current website?
What do users think?
“It’s too deep of a dig to see what I’m going to get.” -JMK
“She has great imagery.”
- User B
Heuristic Analysis
In order to identify pain points and areas of opportunity surrounding the Consilience Coaching website, I conducted a heuristic analysis of the site. This helped me discover which heuristics were being violated and identify priorities for focus. Read the heuristic evaluation here.
Usability Testing and Methodology
The team determined think-aloud usability testing would be the best method for gaining feedback on the current website. We sourced eleven participants and created a usability testing script to maintain consistency between the interviews, which were conducted and recorded via Zoom with shared screens and the live website. Group synthesis using affinity diagramming helped us identify common themes and insights.
Affinity Diagramming - Analysis and Synthesis
“I love to read, but I don’t love to read websites.” -User B
Deliver
Evaluation Results
Excerpts from the findings and recommendations report.
The Solutions
Findings and Recommendations Report
Synthesis of our data revealed several key insights about the users’ experience of the Consilience Coaching website. All of this information was presented to the client in a findings and recommendations report. Find the full report here.
• users had a positive first impression of the site based on the images on the home page
• users struggled to connect with the mission and offerings of the business due to long blocks of text and a lack of images depicting the coach and services offered
• users got lost bouncing from page to page in search of clear and concise information about packages available, because that information was spread throughout the site versus being consolidated on one page
• the architectural flow of the site left users feeling confused, frustrated, and unsure
Prototyping the Recommendations
I created prototypes of the recommended fixes for the most crucial pain points:
• redesigned and simplified the homepage: kept images that resonated with users, and added others that depicted the coach and the services offered
• redefined the architectural flow of the site and created a page specifically for business offerings
• moved large text blocks off the homepage to “deep dive” pages further out in the flow
Revised Goal: To redesign the homepage and architecture of the Consilience Coaching website in order to help wellness-seeking users gain the information and access they need to work with their personal coach.
Next Steps
In Retrospect
Image from Consilience Coaching website.
If I were to proceed with this project, I would…
• continue to design high-fidelity prototypes to address user concerns
• work with the client to create a more personable and relatable website experience through the inclusion of facial images, so users feel a stronger human connection to the coach
• conduct additional usability testing with high-fidelity prototypes to gauge how effectively site changes have responded to user needs and expectations
What I Learned
This project highlighted the importance of neutrality in listening to the thoughts and feelings of users. Our team initially had unfavorable reactions to some aspects of the site, but through our research we found that the majority of users felt the opposite. This realization lead us to reevaluate our own thinking and reminded us of the importance of employing active and open listening skills in order to get the most useful and representative data. The result was a redesign solution that was much richer in content and context than it would have been otherwise. Special thanks to my team for traveling this path and learning these lessons with me.