Yarra Valley Water

What was done:

Time:

Tools:

Stakeholder kick-off workshop
15 x 60minute usability testing
Review of 5 x 60minute accessibility testing
Synthesis of key insights and delivery of recommendations

4 weeks

Reframer
Figma
Miro

Yarra Valley Water needed assistance with customer research on a prototype of their new online portal.

My role was to lead the research strategy with a principal UX designer and ensure the research met the needs of the client.

Due to the fact that the portal is still under development, the screens cannot be shown.

The delivery of a detailed usability testing report helped the client understand the gaps and opportunity areas with the new portal for the team to focus their attention.

The Challenge

The goal of the project was to understand the desirability of an integrated portal that combines two different online customer portals. It also sought to help the project team undertand customers' mental models around registration, security and switching between the two portals.

Understanding accessibility requirements

The project also involved making sure that the proposed design would serve the needs of a wide range of customers including those with lived experiences of a disability.

Partnering up with a third-party accessibility consultancy, my role was to ensure that the requirements and stakeholders needs are translated across and that all parties are on the same page about the scope of the testing.

Making sense of the user flow and the prototype

One of the challenges was making sense of the various user flows and pathways related to:

registering for a portal
logging into the portal once registered
switching between different accounts once logged in

One of the constraints with the way the portals are set up is that they are infact distinct portals even though they relate to the same customer. Customers needed to register for the two portals separately and then go through the process of integrating the accounts.

Exploring customers' mental models around this concept I wanted to understand:

What are the opportunity areas for the registration and log-in process?
How effective are the terminology and copy used within the new design to support the concept of integration?
What are the opportunity areas on the dashboard to help customers switch between different portals?

For participants with lived experiences of a disability, I was keen to understand if the registration and log-in process were easy to navigate and if elements on a page were discernable and accessible. Due to the limitations of a prototype, certain assistive technology, such as screen readers, could not be utilised. However, participants with low-vision could successfully zoom in on the prototype screens.

High level research findings and recommendations

There were opportunities for educating customers during the registration journey about the relationship between the two portals and how integration will play a role in providing easier access. This meant rethinking the scenarios that might bring a customer to the website in the first place, map out the different pathways customers could take, and reconsidering ways that copy could be better leveraged to help customers understand the relationship between the two portals earlier in their journey.

In addition, I identified quick wins around the portal dashboard design which would have better supported the idea of an integrated portal.

I also identified terminology used on the prototype as another sticking point as it failed to help customers choose the right pathways to registration. It was important to change the terminology used to be more reflective of what customers should expect or provide additional information to help customers make more of an informed decision.

Impact of the project

The project provided a valuable insight into the mental model of customers. The research insights provided Yarra Valley Water with an understanding of the gaps and opportunity areas with their current design. Recommendations in the final report helped provided concrete, actionable next steps for the design team to implement. This included additional researching and testing with different segments of their customer base.

Reflection

I enjoyed this project for several reasons. The first was being able to lead the project. This challenged my stakeholder management skills and I had to ensure that the usability testing requirements were clear and communicated across to our accessibility testing partner.

I learnt that it is important to have clear communication especially in dealing with a complicated prototype. It was also important to spend time breaking down the problem and the prototype to make sure I understood the flow. This helped me avoid getting lost in the complexities.

The second reason I particularly enjoyed this project was due to the accessibility testing component involved. It was a valuable experience working with an external accessibility testing consultancy and understanding the various additional requirements around usability testing.

My lesson was to approach this project with extra empathy particularly when playing back the research insights to stakeholders for whom this may have been their first time viewing an accessibility testing session.