My role

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UX/UI Designer and UX Researcher

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Key Skills, methods, and tools

 

UX/UI Design and Research, wire-framing, prototyping, Visual Design, Graphic Design, Stakeholder Management, Presenting and Deliver the work, Team management, Figma, Miro, and Trello

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Project overview 

 

Australia is known globally as one of the world’s most diverse and welcoming countries. Having said that, Australia is the 3rd most popular destination for international students in the world. 

 

The EziExpereince is an online platform for student services and accommodation providers in Victoria. EziExpereience recruits students from all over the globe who come to Australia to study English and experience all the wonders that Melbourne and Australia have to offer. They help international students find accommodation and connect homestay or apartment hosts with students also they find students internships where they can work with Australian organisations.

                                                

Since covid hit, they had to do the same process online. Therefore my task was to design a website for to whom want to explore Australia, learn the Australian culture and study English and do an internship with an Australian company from wherever they live in the world. EziExperience is needed to serve an ultimate virtual experience of living abroad. 

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The Brief

 

EziExperience's website needed a refresh, both visually and functionality. Since the content and the easy navigation were one of the most important in this application but were lacking in their current site design, the main challenge was to make it authentic, interesting, and user-friendly.

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They wanted a site that helps meet the needs and requirements of their customers and satisfies them by providing a greater service. 

 

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Goals and objectives

 

To solve the problem effectively, I needed to know the root cause of the problem. Delving deeper into the problem helped me understand the needs and challenges faced by the user. Framing the 5 Ws – Who, What, When, and Why and answering them myself helped me to understand the problem and design the solution that will resonate with the user. 

 

Therefore, the objective of the project is to make the website with a clear visual identity and to be able to communicate the company values more clearly through visuals, content, and easy navigation. 

 

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Design process

 

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Methodologies

 

Due to the time constraints, I shifted my focus towards the international students, therefore, the following research was based on the international students.

 

Secondary Research - Doing desk research helped me learn how the pandemic has affected students to study abroad, the co-living concept, and what the obvious factors are that are encouraging users to use this product. It also helped me come up with the right questions needed for user interviews and other primary research.

 

Competitive Analysis & Market Research -  This helped me to understand the trends and best practices in the co-living market and competitors of accommodation in Australia, to find out what features they have that contributed to their success. Those competitors include The Collective.com and Badi which have very similar user demographics to EziExperience. . It also allowed me to familiarise myself with the EziExperience brand and offerings and see how they compare to their competitors. 

 

This analysis enabled me to see what features may be included to help our users achieve their goals, and which ones are unnecessary.

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Surveys and interviews - The surveys and interview questions, as a result, were structured differently to cater to international students. For example, in the survey for international students, I asked questions that seek to understand the challenges that they encountered when looking for a homestay in Australia. Also, some of the questions were designed to uncover the current motivations and pain points in the place–finding process.

 

The interview sessions gave me a much more in-depth understanding of the students’ experiences in the co-living space.

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Research Insights

 

I realised that many students want to have the freedom to choose their online homestay because this would increase their chance of finding a good match. As well, many variables make up “a good match”, such as experience living abroad without the travel and hefty costs, practice communicating English with a native speaker through content integrated learning. All of these variables are important considering factors for the students.

 

The key findings of the surveys were:

•  Eighty percent (80%) responded that they liked to study abroad.

•  Fifty-five point four percent (55.4%) responded that they liked to learn the Australian culture.

• Eighty-six point four percent (86.4%) responded that they were interested in communicating English.

•  Sixty-eight percent (68%) responded that they would be happy to work in an Australian company.

 

Results of the Interviews:

• The majority of users wanted to study abroad.

• Users have not used an online platform to find a homestay

• The majority wanted to learn English.

• Respondents were frustrated about the travel restrictions imposed due to the COVID pandemic, but anxiously awaiting for lifting the travel ban to study in Australia.

 

 

 

Persona Development – Nicol Li

 

With the synthesised findings in mind, I created a persona for an international student. Persona is a representation of the different user demographics for Accommodation in Australia.

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EziExperience needed to be designed such that the user’s trust is established as soon as they land on the website. Factors like their years of experience and their cultural knowledge are important for the user at first glance. Similarly, students will find out that they will be taken good care of by the EziExperiene agents even after the accommodation-matching process. 

 

Also, EziExperience wanted to make sure that students gain world-class, international work experience from EziExperience’s vast network of Australian companies and make students familiar with the Australian workplace before coming to Australia. 

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Nicol's journey map

 

To further understand all the pain points that Nicol experiences across different points of interaction with finding an online homestay in Australia, I also designed a customer journey map. This map shows the different issues at different stages that she goes through, starting with finding an agency to getting matched with a homestay host. Being able to visualise these stages enables us to see the opportunities that may arise at different times. As well, the map helped me to find ways to reduce the layers of friction that Nicol experience.

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Project Strategy

 

Based on my understanding of Nicol’s motivations and frustrations at this point, I then proceeded to prioritise the features that would help her complete desired tasks more easily. Since the research pointed out that the main task that user wants to complete on the website is to find a suitable online homestay host, I decided that the primary task is to apply find an online homestay.

 

 

User flow 

 

I created the user flow where I put in mind how the user would navigate our website. This user flow takes into account both user groups: students and homestay hosts. Since their goals are different, the features that they want would be different. These differences are all taken into account in this user flow.

 

 

Design, Prototyping, and Testing

 

Low Fidelity - With the features in mind, I created low-fidelity sketches. This enabled me to quickly test the design with our users and see how I can improve them. Afterward, I designed mid-fidelity versions of the design, which include more details than the rough sketches.

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Here are some key mid-fidelity wireframes and high-fidelity wireframes that I created based on the testing sessions with our users.

 

 

Mid Fidelity 

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User feedback

• “This wasn’t straight forward as a first time user”

• “Need more guide to understand which step I am at”

• “Cannot understand the process”

• "It is very well designed. 

 

 

High Fidelity

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It’s much the same in terms of layout with limited functionality but clickable areas which presented the interactions and navigation possibilities.

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User feedback

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· “ Easy navigation”

· “ Very informative” 

· "It's visually appealing and draws me in"

· “The website is visually appealing, creating an inspirational impact”

 

 

Next Steps

 

The next steps would be to make revisions based on the second round of usability testing on the high def version. After making those revisions to the screens and prototype, I would continue to add some of the features laid out on the feature roadmap and conduct user testing again for the feedback. The app is heading in the right direction and finding any way to make further improvements to the process and experience would only make it stronger in the end.

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Conclusion

 

Working on this project has been a huge learning experience for me. Getting stuck in between stages and racking my brain at every step to move forward was challenging and stimulating. But with the help of my immediate supervisor, I was able to overcome those hurdles. For the future, I would like to make my interview questions more structured and organised in the future. But overall, the sense of accomplishment I got when I finally completed this project was unforgettable.

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As well, I could further personalise the accommodation-finding experience for the user by creating detailed personal account pages.

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Due to the time restraint, our focus was placed on the international student user group. If this project was to be extended, I’d like to conduct more research on host & apartment owners.

 

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