Dr. Maclay General Practice
The project is still in progress and this section is under development.
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Overview
Dr. Maclay General Practice is a private clinic located in Melbourne, Australia which offers high-quality healthcare in a safe and friendly environment.
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The clinic offers services to international students, visitors, and Australian residents. The main communication route to patients is by phone, however, the clinic’s website is used for support communication and for online-only services.
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My Role
As a UX Designer, in this project, I was responsible for UX research, including all analysis and usability testing. Additionally, I was also in charge of building low and high-fidelity wireframes and prototypes, and their validation with users.
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The problem
The client has received many complaints from their users, mainly regarding difficulties to find key information on the website.
Therefore, The project aims to further improve the service platform offered on the website, increase the reach and the connection with the patients and facilitate the communication between the patients and Dr. Maclay.​
UX Research
Initially, research was conducted to discover insights into the client’s problem. The aims here were to dive into the user's needs and why are they having trouble finding information about the clinic.
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Questions
Some of the uncertainties we faced were the following:
Research Strategy
The roadmap below shows the structured UX research steps followed in order to access the questions above.
Heuristics Evaluation
Main question: Are there any usability issues on the website?
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I screened the whole website for potential usability issues using Nielsen`s Usability Heuristics as a reference.
What did we find?
There were some positive findings on the website, however, I also found more than 9 major usability problems including two catastrophic issues.
Competitors analysis
Main question: How are the other clinics informing their users??
What have we found?
Main discoveries
Survey
Why run a survey?
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What did we want to discover?
What have we found?
We confirmed that most users (about 80%) are non-native English speakers, 50% of them have basic proficiency in the language and the majority are international students.
When we asked “what could be improved” we found out that:
- 60% of the users requested a refinement on the website organization and information architecture;
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- 50% requested an improvement of the layout;
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- 33% mentioned language.
When asked about their “first impression” of the website, many users reported the same issues as we unraveled previously:
Regarding the website’s navigation, most users did not have any difficulties. However, a high percentage of users reported navigation issues.
The most common issues the users face are related to the unresponsiveness of the menu and confusing information architecture.
Summary
To summarize, the most important insights identified in the survey were:​
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- Most patients are non-native and have limited English;
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- Most complaints were related to language, organization, and layout;
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- Navigation was also found to be an issue;
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- The information most sought (address, phone, and email) are often not found;
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- Information on insurances and online services should be informed more clearly.
Persona
How and Why?
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Usability Testing
Why and How?
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What have we found?
We gave tasks to users and interviewed them afterward. The tasks and completion rates were the following:
Below are some insights taken from users during the usability testing:
Summary
We confirmed and gathered more in-depth insights into the issues identified in previous steps:​
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- Users had difficulty navigating and finding information;
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- Information that should be clear is often hidden;
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- The layout made the users uncomfortable due to lack of hierarchy and poor organization.
Card sorting
Why did we do this dynamics?
What have we found?
We now have clear groups that will be used to redesign the information architecture of the website.
Group dendrogram
Standardization grid
Definition and prioritization
The insights generated in the UX research process were grouped up and prioritized by affinity mapping in a brainstorm section. The insights were grouped up in six categories that need to be worked: Features, Information, Layout, Navigation, Organization and Language.
Affinity Mapping
Moreover, we transformed the insights into actions and potential solutions in a brainstorming session to prioritize the issues found during the research. The How Might We technique was employed in order to enhance creativity and bring new ideas to the table.
Next, we used a 2x2 Matrix (Impact for the user x Effort to be developed) to decide which issues should be worked on.
The high-impact and low-effort issues have higher priority, followed by high-impact and high-effort and low-impact and low effort.
The issues classified as low-impact and high-effort will be dealt with when the priority issues are complete.
2x2 Matrix
Solutioning problems
The high-priority issues found in the previous steps were selected to be worked on.
Since the website`s architecture was a major issue, I reorganized the information into separate sections matching the findings obtained in the card sorting dynamics. The sitemap below would be used as a base for designing the new webpage:
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Ideation sections led to the first sketches with potential solutions. These sketches served as a blueprint for the development of low-fidelity wireframes.
Sketches
Wireframing
After the ideas were consolidated into the sketches, I further created low-fidelity interactive wireframes and validated them with users that matched the target personas.
What were we testing with these wireframes?
Through iteration, the wireframes were constantly validated with potential users to assure the solutions designed met the user’s needs.
Validation results
I could observe an overall increase in task completion rates and a decrease in difficulty completion by comparing the number of clicks and the steps taken to finish a task.
The deliverables were a UX report with research results, prioritization matrixes, low-fidelity wireframes, a new sitemap, and information architecture.
What have I learned?
