OWEYAA WEBSITE REDESIGN

WHAT IS OWEYAA?

OweYaa is a web-based platform that engages Military service members & Spouses through an exchange with startups and nonprofits in order to develop skill sets, engage in cultural interaction, and gain civilian work experience.

As a team of three UX Designers myself, Anna Li and Kai Custodio, we were tasked to redesign OweYaa’s current website.

Over the course of three weeks we researched, designed and prototyped 
the following:

• Brand Analysis

• Competitive Analysis

• Heuristic Analysis

• User Interviews

• Feature Prioritization

• Wireframes

• Prototype

• Usability Testing

THE opportunity

OweYaa was still in bootstrap mode, so there was a lot of opportunity for improvement here. The website was confusing to users. They were unsure of what the company was about and how the company worked. We proposed a complete website restructure with some additional new features.

From our research, it was clear that a total website restructure was necessary so that OweYaa’s mission, instructions, and pricing plans were clear and transparent. We wanted to create a completely separate page for clients and beneficiaries. The client’s side needed a clear way to show that outsourcing small tasks and projects could help keep overhead costs low, at the same time, give back to the military community. The beneficiaries’ side needed a clear way to show that they were signing up for unpaid internships that would provide them with valuable technical skills.

As for the sign-up flow, the current process required users to fill out a 22 (for beneficiaries) and 13 (for clients) question survey. We wanted to make it easy for users to sign up by entering the least amount of information possible at one given time. We believed creating a username login flow and profile page could be less overwhelming when signing up.

Business Goal

Increase conversion rate of visitors.

BRAND ANALYSIS

In order to serve our client, we needed to understand who they were and what they were about. We researched the OweYaa website and all their social media profiles, and then conducted stakeholder interviews with Barika Edwards (CEO) and Luke Jenkins (Co-founder).

OweYaa is a web based platform that serves two main purposes:

1. To break down the barriers that military and military spouses facewhen transitioning into civilian life. (Beneficiaries)

2. To help startups scale by keeping overhead costs low. (Clients)

Here were some assumptions the stakeholders had on user pain points:

• Military folks are not able to communicate their transferrable military experience skills into a job in the civilian world.

• Military folks don’t have access to internships because these are usually obtained through referrals and recommendations, which they do not have access to.

• Military folks are branded as undesirable to hire because of the misconception that all veterans suffer from PTSD.

Additional Findings:

• OweYaa was trying to refine their mission statement and figure out the best way to communicate and alleviate barriers of entry.

• OweYaa’s current onboarding and match making processes are handled manually so it was extremely time consuming.

• 10% of OweYaa’s revenue went towards education to support the military’s opportunity fund.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

We conducted a competitive analysis to evaluate how OweYaa’s competition stacked up against usability standards and overall user experience. In our research we wanted to compare certain features and functions competitors were utilizing. The goal of this research was to see what functions we thought were working, not working, and may possibly use for OweYaa.

We looked at 5 competitors of OweYaa:

We noted the features of each website and compared it to OweYaa’s. 
 Our findings showed that 4 out of 5 companies were using:

• Login method

• Profile page

• Testimonials for both job seekers and companies

These features could be beneficial for OweYaa users making it easier for them to sign up and giving them incentive to come back and interact with the website. Testimonials could give users a sense of trust in the website because people want to know that others have had great experiences using the website.

HEURISTIC ANALYSIS

We also conducted a heuristic analysis on OweYaa and its competitors to evaluate how each feature of the website actually worked. We evaluated whether these features were successful or not in achieving its purpose.

We focused on 3 competitor websites: Power to Fly, UpWork and Orion

Heuristic Analysis | Power to Fly

Heuristic Analysis | UpWork

Heuristic Analysis | Orion

Heuristic Analysis | OweYaa

USER RESEARCH

User Survey
To find military folks to interview, we sent out a screener. We did not have any incentives to offer, so we had to be resourceful and reach out to our personal, professional, and OweYaa’s networks.

The purpose of the survey was to find out:

• Whether they were enlistees or officers

• Whether they were confident in their ability to transition from military life to civilian life

• Whether or not there were resources available for them to transition

As of 05/23/16, we received 28 responses.

Main screener findings:

89% were enlisted. Enlistees were the target users, so it was good to know most people who joined the military did not have a college degree going in.

32% were not confident in their ability to transition from military life to civilian life. This was the niche market area that OweYaa wanted to tap into.

65% were either planning to or have obtained help with transitioning. This was the service that OweYaa was trying to provide.

All 3 points validate that there currently was a problem in the transition stage for enlisted military folks.

User Interviews:
In total, we have conducted 15 user interviews. We split our interviews into 2 separate sections. The purpose of both was to find out more about both users’ experiences and needs.

• 5 clients

• 8 beneficiaries

• 2 hybrids (veteran/military spouse + startup founder)

Here were some of our client findings (% are based off 7 startups):

• Early stage startups are looking for more experienced hires.

• Later stage startups with seed money are more open/willing to take on vets.

• 50% of users are unsure of how military folks can transfer military skills to their companies.

• 33% of users want to help veterans develop skills to give back to the community once their company was more established. However, they wanted to be able to see information on skills/character before allowing them to work for them (even if it was on a per project basis).

Usability Testing Insights
In total, we had 7 people test the current website.

From the client’s perspective:

“It’s too much information right away, it’s going to stop some people.”

“A large image with a simple mission statement should be the first thing I see.”

“I would want to login with social media to make it easier.”

“There’s nothing here that tells me what I’m paying for.”

“Where are the rules on what happens when the match wasn’t a right fit?”

From the beneficiary’s perspective:

“I can understand how the site works by reading everything, however, I’m not sure how many other people will.”

“It should be stated upfront that military and military spouses will not be getting paid for the work.”

“The ‘How It Works’ section is too much to read.”

“There are a lot of questions to fill out…”

“The microcopy is a huge issue with the site.”

Synthesizing the Data

We gathered all of our user quotes and feedback and began to synthesize them on the board. We needed to discover some trending pain points of our users in order to solve the problems the website.

We grouped some of these findings and trends and began to create secondary and primary personas to help guide us in our next stage of design.

Personas

Beneficiary Personas
To make our user research more digestable we summarized our findings into 4 personas (2 to represent clients, and 2 to represent beneficiaries).

Client Personas

Feature Prioritization

Each element that were implemented was prioritized based on needs that were, Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won’t have.

Platform: Responsive Website

According to OweYaa’s analytics, 83% of visits are accessed through a PC/laptop. OweYaa currently operates as a desktop website that is unresponsive to other devices. A responsive website is designed to adapt across multiple device platforms to provide optimal viewing and interaction experience making it more accessible to everyone.

Military folks do not always have access to a computer, but they can easily access their mobile phones. Statistics shows that mobile browsing has outpaced desktop usage in 2014, so it is crucial to have a mobile strategy. Users do not always like being redirected to downloading an app.

Advantages:

• More cost effective. There is only one codebase to maintain, making it more efficient to update.
  Less time = less costs.

• Increases conversion rate. According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, responsive sites achieve 11% more conversions than non-responsive sites on average.

• Content prioritization. Prioritizing content can make for a stronger site that users would understand and want to come back to.

• Future proof. Responsive websites can work for all types of devices, so no updates need to be made when new devices enter the market.

Citation:
[Cao, Jerry. The Web in 2016: Long Live Responsive Design. The Next Web, 2016. Web. Feb. 2016 http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/12/22/the-web-in-2016-long-live-responsive-design/]

Site Map

Before we started designing a prototype of the new OweYaa website we had to create the navigational order, labeling system, and hierarchy. Here is the site map we created in order to create the structure for the new website.

The Redesigned Website

After prioritizing each feature and creating the site map we began sketching out how the website should look like.

User Flows

After designing our landing pages in low fidelity wireframes we began creating user flows to help us design a better interactive experience.

Annotated Wireframes

Once we dialed in out design we created hi fidelity wireframes. Below is annotated wireframe of our homepage for the beneficiary side of the website.

Usability Testing

We went through 3 rounds of iterations on our wireframes. 
In total, we tested 15 users.

9 were from completely unbiased users through usertesting.com.

User testing responses from version 1 :

“I’m always a little weary about entering my password once. What if I typed it wrong?”

“How do I know what page I’m on?”

“If I’m messaging someone, I want it to be more personal.”

“How do I know what I worked on in the past?”

“Where is the timestamp (for messages)?”

User testing responses from version 2 :

“When I hear Task a Vet, I’m not looking for someone to tell me what to do, I’m looking for someone to help or mentor.”

“How do you pronounce this? Oh-We-Yah? It’s tripping me up.”

“Product validation? What is that? It could be anything.”

“I don’t know what to expect to happen after I just finished filling out the onboarding survey…”

Positive responses from the client side of the website:

“The onboarding was very easy. I like the colors. I liked that the subscription plans matched the homepage, it felt familiar.”

“I liked how easy it was to add a task to the Project Tracker.”

“I like testimonials, it shows that other people have used this.”

“Survey was very simple.”

Positive responses from the beneficiary side of the website:

“I like that the army guy is the first thing I see. It feels very relatable.”

“Everything looks orderly and easily accessible. I don’t need to dig too deep.”

“Onboarding was very easy. Instructions were very easy to follow.”

“If you’re coming out of the war, and you’re using this, it’s very easy to use and friendly to come back to.”

“Where were you in 1992 when I needed something like this then?”

We knew we had a good set of wireframes when the last 6 users from usertesting.com rated our prototype 10/10 for ease of use and most likely to recommend to a friend.

FINAL DESIGN

FINAL WEBSITE DESIGN

CLICK HERE

Next Steps

We are confident OweYaa now has a solid set of wireframes to base their foundation off of. Features that were nice to have, but we didn’t have time to build include:

• Resume builder

• Sharable portfolio creator

• Reference and recommendation

• Digital thank you cards

Suggestions for OweYaa from users:

• 3 users who tested the client side wanted a free trial before committing.

• “Interns alleviate, but also cause more work.”

• “20 hrs a month might make more sense than 10 hrs.”

• “I’m looking for someone with a growth mentality who I want to eventually hire or else

• I don’t want to invest the time to train them.”

• Sell people on the long term goal.

• “I’m still iffy. You’re matching me with someone. I want the ability to choose.”