ALEX FULLGRAF WEBSITE
Life coaching
Introduction
Alex’s Story
I was approached by Alex who had recently decided to pursue her passion of becoming a Life Coach. She wanted to develop an online visual identity that reflected her personality and desire to help people live their fullest lives.
Alex struggled to differentiate herself in a crowded marketplace and in attracting the right clients that would best benefit from her offerings.
Role
UX Research
UX/UI Design
Branding
Web Development
01.
Discover
Alex’s primary focus was to target the needs of Millennials located in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). She felt this target audience would resonate the most with her offerings and experience.
I conducted primary research by interviewing 5 potential clients to identify their frustrations, needs, and motivations to help build user personas. In addition, I conducted a brand discovery exercise with Alex to determine her values and also interviewed clients to gain feedback on prototypes at a later stage.
I also conducted secondary research through market research analysis to identify potential competitors and their market positioning to help shape the website solution and identify points of differentiation.
02.
Define
Client insights
Think and Feel
Millennials are much more likely to prioritize their mental and physical health than previous generations. They strive for continuous self-improvement and are open to exploring and testing different treatment options.
Pain and Gain
They are frustrated by the volatility of their external environment and the challenges of meeting their basic needs. However, they are also optimistic about designing an unconventional life that is fulfilling to them but requires guidance
Competitor insights
Challenges
Alex’s main competitors include psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychologists with well-established practices. Life coaching, in contrast, is a relatively new professional service within the industry that lacks audience awareness.
Opportunities
Millennials have traditionally sought these treatments but sometimes found them to be too clinical and cold. Millennials are gravitating towards seeking assistance in making direct and tangible progress towards their goals.
03.
Develop
Ideating solutions
There was a potential opportunity to design net new features and position Alex’s services to solve Millennial’s pain points. The solution had to feature an educational aspect of informing clients of the benefits of life coaching. In addition, the user interface and branding had to evoke feelings of comfort, optimism, and being guided through a journey of self-discovery.
Prioritization Matrix and Information Architecture
Through a prioritization matrix, I was able to identify the features that should be focused on in this iteration of her website and the ones that should be prioritized for the second iteration.
As a new business, the primary goal was to create awareness of life coaching and its benefits, Alex and her credentials, and introduce the range of services that could benefit clients. The content on the main and supporting pages was arranged to tell a convincing story that would encourage the end-user to make the first contact with Alex.
These inquiries would hopefully lead to conversions of purchasing a package of coaching sessions. This CTA was then placed at multiple sections within the site to increase the chance of a conversion.
Visual Identity
Through a brand discovery exercise, I identified Alex’s brand values and how they would resonate with her clientele. Each chosen visual element would be reflective of Alex’s values and her services.
Yellow was chosen as her identifying colour as it represents joy, happiness, and energy. Blue was a balancing colour representing stability, depth, and trust. The serif and sans-serif fonts represented the duality of authoritative trust and relaxed comfort. Imagery played a big role in injecting life to the site thus had to reflect the diversity of Alex’s clientele.
Prototyping
Following the prioritization matrix and information architecture, the main feature that was of paramount importance was a page dedicated to educating clients about the benefits of life coaching and how life coaching could meet their needs. The User Interface had to create a safe and welcoming environment that reflected Alex’s brand values.
What is life coaching?
Clients found the information overwhelming in the before version. I reduced and combined the information and focused on highlighting the benefits of life coaching as shown in the after image.
Before
After
Who is Alex?
Clients found the information was buried in the before version. I moved Alex's description above the fold in the after version.
Before
After
Would you sign up for Alex’s services?
Clients wanted more information about other's experiences with Alex. I created a Testimonial page, as shown in the after image, to instill confidence in the client's decision to contact Alex.
Before
After
Learnings
User Psychology
Given the sensitive nature of the service, it was really important to understand the mindset of users when using the site. I realized the importance of using UX Design psychology theories to prioritize and group information in a clear manner.
Promotion
I believe we were pretty thorough in the overall development process. Circling back to Alex's main objective was to establish her business by developing her client base. More could have been done to market her site in terms of search engine optimization and potentially online ads.
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