Be a maker club
Website redesign
Role- UX researcher, presentation, site map, user flow
Tools- Figma, Google docs and slides, Monday.com, Zoom, Trello
Time- 3-week sprint
Move to the good stuff…
Our user
identifying the users
We conducted a thorough round of interviews, with current users, parents, and aspiring makers to see how they experience the BAMC Website. Here’s what they had to say:
what our users think…..?
I don’t understand the difference between membership tiers.
It was hard to find “my account’ on the bottom of the page.
I trust that they are very knowledgeable about their field.
I like the concept. I like the idea of what they're doing.
Carl needs a way to stay engaged and so he can learn to become a next level maker, but there are so many other things competing for a 9 year-old’s attention.
Dr. Grey needs a course that will satisfy her kids so that they’re engaged, self-sufficient, and they acquire important academic skills.
New site map
New user flow
Develop
Now we are at the good part of developing our ideas to reality. We laid up some sketches and quickly did some Mid fidelity prototypes and usability testing.
Mid fidelity usability test
The Pros
Intuitive Design
We were thrilled that 80% of users referred to our mid-fi prototype as “easy to navigate”. Since improving the IA is a priority for us, this suggested that we were on the right track.
Trial Membership
Our team made it clearer that the trial membership is an option for users who are new to 3D printing and just want to try it out. 100% of the users saw this as “helpful” and “thoughtful”.
Personalization
We enhanced the heretofore underused My Account feature, which made users feel more connected to BAMC and resulted in more enthusiastic user engagement
The Cons
Design
Certain design elements were very distracting to users, such as strangely large buttons and text.
Video Course Flow
Users did find the flow for the video courses somewhat confusing, particularly when it comes time to submit 3D printable files to BAMC at the end of a course.
Paywall
Even when a user would opt for the trial membership, the lack of a paywall or onboarding made them unsure of where they were in a user flow.
High-Fidelity user testing
And we found out,
The high-fidelity prototype received positive feedback, however, there were some shortcomings to address.
The good
Style and design choices such as new imagery and animated elements reinforced BAMC’s brand as a fun and creative site and more enjoyable for the user.
Users found the membership page easy to navigate.
Much to our delight, users consistently found the site intuitive.
The scope of improvement
Users were confused about the Maker points.
Some of the users found the video page overwhelming.
Next steps
Comment Forum
Sites like Quora and Reddit use community engagement to great success. By having a supportive community where users can ask questions, and get and give answers, users will return to the site for the approval of their 3D printing peers through upvoting and a sense of pride in their community.
Weekly Challenges
A challenge for students to be featured on a leaderboard will create a sense of urgency to engage with BAMC. Here are some examples:
Animal Experience: Come up with an idea for a simple design for a printable animal.
The Name Plate Challenge: Design a nameplate in any way you can imagine! Here are some examples (include pics of nameplates)
Course Completion Badges
As students complete courses, they can earn points that go toward badges. Similar to merit badges or video game achievements, these publicly displayed badges will drive engagement with classes, and may even entice a user to upgrade to a more all-encompassing plan that has more videos available to them.
Separate Navigation for Parents and Children
This service would be something that parents would need to opt-in to, but could ultimately end up saving both the parents and students time, and making the site more navigable to both