Project duration

2 Weeks

Primary persona

Lauren Berlinger
29 year old Script writer.

Primary persona

My client provided me with a primary persona, Lauren Berlinger. The first step in my research was to validate that Lauren is in-fact the primary user for their website based on their business goals.

Research methodology

Field study
I started my research with field study. Exploring the Elysian customers in the environment of the brewery. This method allowed me to understand the context of the environment and peek into the business behind the website itself. One of my goals was to investigate how the management perceives the business goals and the customers they serve.

User interviews
I conducted user interviews to explore the user experience at Elysian Brewing in Capitol Hill. I wanted to investigate their behaviors, habits, and reasons they use the Elysian Brewing website. This uncovered many interesting trends, such as the desire for ordering beer online for pick-up.

Usability testing
I conducted usability testing to first establish a baseline experience of the current Elysian Brewing site and e-commerce checkout. This allowed me to understand the users thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the original site and establish pain points. Once I created a functioning prototype I continued with four rounds of usability testing to inform my design decisions.

Research overview

My first step was to validate the client provided persona through User Interviews. Explore how the business goals and pain points can be realized through a more intuitive checkout process. I measured my success in simplifying the user flow and meeting user needs through usability testing my design changes with customers.

My exploration began with the Elysian website and Yelp reviews. I wanted to get an idea of the brand and its role in Seattle brewing culture before I started my field research.

I started with an ethnographic bend to my research and I visited Elysian Brewing in Capitol Hill. I wanted to establish a sense of the business and get a chance to speak with the customers. My goal was to get to know more about the behaviors and history of individuals who work at the brewery and the customers who visit the locations.

User interviews

After I finished my interview with the location manager, I asked if I could chat with some of the customers that were present that evening. She gave me permission as long as the customers said yes and felt comfortable.

I took my beer and walked up to them and introduced myself. I allowed the customers to guide the conversations and questions. Mostly, I asked five to ten questions, trying to focus around their background and general experience.

During my time talking with the manager at Elysian it became evident that the Brewery had a lot of goals it wanted to achieve, which would inform my redesign choices. It was clear that although the brewery is making a lot of money on a national level, it took a serious hit in the craft beer culture of Seattle.

• Elysian has produced up to 663 beers since it opened in 1996.

Elysian produces at about one new beer weekly and they have new goals for reinvigorating their brand amongst Seattleites.

Business objectives

These are four of the top business objectives that Elysian Brewing wants to achieve.

Regain trust

• The business objective is to attract the local Seattle crowd and regain their trust as a craft brewery.

Thinking local

• Convince Seattleites that Elysian Brewing is still thinking local even when though they have gone national.

Seasonal and experimental beers

• Focus on seasonal and experimental beers.

Up-to-date website

• Keep its website up-to-date to minimize confusion and disappointment.

Participants

I conducted five user interviews with individuals who were spending their evening at Elysian. I wanted to know what they enjoy about breweries and what it is about Elysian that brings them there.

Participants
A total of 16 users participated in interviews and usability test sessions. I utilized one Elysian manager, five customers, and 11 beer enthusiasts.

Persona development
The user interviews validated Lauren Berlinger as the primary persona. However, it was clear that it would be very valuable to develop at least one more persona. This would allow Elysian to better align its vision with families that visit the brewery for social time and event veterans who use the website to learn about Elysian’s community events or buy swag. It would be very valuable to tap into this previously established user base and anchor the beer for pick-up to already established user habits.

The main points from user interviews:

• “I like to go to breweries to try new selections”

• “I go for the special beers”

• “I need it to be convenient”

• “I need to look for events”

• “I need it to be timely and want updates”

• “I don’t know where to learn about it”

• “I need to have beer to go”

• “I have to trust the brand to order online”

Problem statement

Lauren needs a way to reserve and buy Elysian Brewing’s exclusive craft beers online because otherwise she will miss out on their unique weekly batches.

Solution statement

I designed an online system to order for pick-up experimental, seasonal, and specialty beers which assures Lauren won’t miss out on exclusive opportunities.

Competitive
analysis

To explore the main competitors of Elysian Brewing I wanted to look both locally and nationally. This was important because there were very few craft breweries in Seattle that had national distribution. So, I decided to look outside of Washington. One of Elysian’s main competitors is Ninkasi Brewing Company from Eugene, Oregon. They also have national distribution and have continued to operate with a craft brewing agenda.

Competitive analysis for brewing companies.

As Elysian wants to reestablish its name as a craft brewery in Seattle, I wanted to also examine the other brewing competition that would share customers. Seattle has a large craft brewing culture, so I selected larger breweries that were popular to both tourists and locals and had been mentioned in the news or mentioned by local bloggers.

Establishing a baseline

I first wanted to see where the strengths and weaknesses were in the current website construction. I enlisted five users to perform five tasks on the original website and had them think out loud as they completed them.

• Task 1 - Find a piece of clothing that you like and purchase it.

• Task 2 - Where would you expect to find information on Beer to GO?

• Task 3 - Can you show me where to find the business timeline?

• Task 4 - How would you find a contact haze in a store near you?

• Task 5 - Tell me where you would expect to find information about their hours?

Once users started the process of selecting an item for purchase, they felt the product page was unresponsive, and once they opened the cart they were overwhelmed by the form fields. Four out of five users asked for help and only one user actually made it through the check-out process.

Information architecture

After establishing the baseline, I referenced the competitors websites and comparative businesses to help establish the global navigation title language I might want to use.

New sitemap

I first sketched out the sitemap of the original website to best understand how it was laid out and the logic behind its construction. There are a lot of good things about the website that I want to include in the redesign.

I created a new sitemap to which addressed some of the design issues faced by users in during the baseline testing.

Iteration one findings

I made a lot of changes after my first round of user testing. I selected five more users and had them perform the same task scenarios. It was important to simplify the task wording, which yielded much more valuable information about the users needs, pain points, and expectations.

Five users results
Three out of the five users found the checkout fairly easy and intuitive, but there were several noted hang-ups. They didn’t know they needed to add the date and time while checking out, because the boxes were not located in an intuitive location. Users also commented that they would prefer a guest checkout option.

Iteration two findings

Five users results
Four out of five users found the checkout easy and intuitive, but there were several minor hang-ups. The users didn’t know if their item had been added to the cart and felt that they didn’t expect to be brought directly to the cart page.

Iteration three findings

Six users results
Five out of the six users found: The checkout remained easy and intuitive, but there were several elements to note and change. The users appreciated the color/value change on the add to cart button. Wanted more information on the confirmation page. They said they might have forgotten where they were going to pick up their beer and not remember the time. They also mentioned that they needed billing info for their card.

Iteration four findings

Five users results
Three out of five of the users mentioned that they really wanted guest checkout options. This was a common declaration throughout the iterations. They said they would rather use the guest checkout and not have their info saved. I made these changes and added an email section on checkout.

Next steps

Recommendations

1. Adding a customer review section for each of the beer pages will add trust and confidence in the quality of the brew.

2. Design and add an ordered history page where users can keep track of their beer purchased.

3. Add a calendar sync option for time and date of pick-up, so users can easily schedule their beer pick-up into their day.

4. Conduct two more rounds of usability testing with the high fidelity prototype and then build the website out and release it out into the wild where its success can be tracked through analytics.

Reflections

Task creation
It was not very helpful to have such specific tasks when setting a baseline user experience. It limited the user's natural flow and decision path, which skewed the research findings. It is important to have a prototype that can accommodate more of the unexpected user choices.

Surveys and broadening the research
It would have been very valuable to start this project with a survey to cast a wider net around the Seattle area and explore more of the user behaviors and pain points. This would allow for a clearer validation of the client provided persona and allow for the project to be expanded and include more of the intended user base.

The importance of metrics
Although this project included a solid base of qualitative research it did not include System Usability Scale metrics, which removed an important part of measuring whether the design changes are in fact increasing ease of use. Moving forward, I would start by having five users complete task scenarios and each fill out the SUS form to establish an average baseline metric with the prototype. From there, each iteration would include quantitative data points.

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