Haggard Childcare
Website design for Seattle's Montessori pioneer
Overview
Haggard Childcare Resources is a Montessori pioneer serving Seattle for over 40 years. The company manages 8 schools, 4 affiliated with the University of Washington.
Problem
Confusing organization of information and the absence of visual identity on the existing website
Solution
Using a task-based approach to simplify the information architecture and capturing philosophy through visual design
My Role
Research
UX Design
UI Design
Prototyping
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Duration
10 weeks
April-June, 2022
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Tools
Optimal Workshop
Whimsical
Figma
Photoshop
Illustrator
Team
David Pearl
Kasturi Khanke
Rabab Rabbani
Vidya Subramanyam
Meghna Balachandran
During this user-centered web design project, my work included conducting qualitative research and card sorting, synthesizing findings, creating the information architecture, ideating through wireframes, collaborating to create a brand identity and design system, and designing the high-fidelity prototype.
What does success look like?
The website was redesigned to achieve the following business goals:
Increase teacher and staff job applications by 20% within 6 months of the launch
Reduce caregiver inquiry calls by 15% within 3 months of the launch
Key flows for parents/caregivers and prospective staff
Parents and Caregivers
Browse and Enroll
Users can look for schools at convenient locations, get an idea of spatial infrastructure, programs, and tuition before they proceed to find sept-by-step instructions to submit an application to enroll their child.
Prospective Staff
Assess and Apply
Users can assess if they align with the company's values in addition to learning about school specific information like the experiences of existing staff and campus policies before they submit a job application.
After
Before
Process
Research
First hand feedback
Parents and caregivers prefer to assess childcare facilities through feedback from people with enrolled children.
Choosing a facility
The key factors that influence choice of childcare facilities include location and reputation of the establishment.
Visual characteristics
Websites are visually coherent, follow brand guidelines, and include compelling pictures of children and the infrastructure.
User Experience Opportunities
Website contained both irrelevant and missing information. Navigation was confusing and the system status was unclear.
Complex task flows
Broken links and unclear calls to action made task completion challenging. The application process was very complex.
My team and I visited UW Childcare at Radford Court to learn about their principles and methods. We informally interviewed the directors, teachers, and the coordinator to understand their needs and expectations for the new website.
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Our exploratory research and school visit was instrumental in helping us establish our project goals.
Business Goals
UX Goals
Target Users
Design
The exploratory research and stakeholder interviews during our school visit revealed 4 main opportunities for improvement -
Opportunity 1
Complex Information Architecture
I ran an unmoderated open card sort with 12 participants using Optimal workshop. The information architecture diagram was synthesized using dendrograms and a similarity matrix.
Before
Original website - complex information architecture
After
New design - simplified information architecture
Opportunity 2
Outdated Content
On conducting a content audit on the 14 page website, which included both quantitative and qualitative evaluation, we found several instances of redundant, obsolete, or trivial information (e.g., information about schools that are not open). We also found that many pages lack obvious next steps for the user (e.g., no call-to-actions on school pages).
After
Before
Opportunity 3
Lack of Visual Identity
We used a brand survey to get idea of what the stakeholders at Haggard Childcare Resources felt about the identity of the company. We found the main underlying values to establishment, support, and friendliness and translated them to our branding and design system.
Opportunity 4
Challenging Application Process
We used a brand survey to get idea of what the stakeholders at Haggard Childcare Resources felt about the identity of the company. We found the main underlying values to establishment, support, and friendliness and translated them to our branding and design system.
High fidelity
Wireframes
Usability Studies
We conducted usability studies with 4 participants using our interactive wireframe prototype and here's how it went...
What worked well
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Clear categories and calls-to-action made it easy to navigate and find what users are looking for.
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Page hierarchy and chunking make it easy to skim through pages.
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Following typical website conventions made usage intuitive
What didn't work well
1. Discoverability of the FAQs section on the homepage
​The first opportunity for improvement was related to the discoverability of the FAQs section which lived towards the bottom of the homepage.
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3 out of 3 participants found the FAQ section difficult to find.
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2 out of 3 participants looked for FAQs in the top navigation.
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The usability study informed our decision to create a spearate page for the FAQs and list it as an item in the top navigation.
2. Multiple entry points to the admissions page
​The second opportunity for improvement was related to the entry point to the admissions page. This page could be accessed both via the top navigation and from within the specific school's page. Our testing shows that this confused participants.
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2 of 3 participants were confused about multiple paths to access admissions.
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Clients reiterated that Admissions is not a priority for 50% of schools.
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The Solution includes...
Clear calls to action
Before
After
Before
After
Digestible chunks of content
Before
After
Skimmable pages + progressive disclosure
Before
After
Task-based User Flows
Browse and Enroll
Parents and caregivers
They can look for schools at convenient locations, and get an idea of spatial infrastructure, programs, and tuition before they are presented with sept-by-step instructions to submit an application to enroll their child.
Assess and Apply
Job Seekers
They can assess if they align with the company's values in addition to understanding school-specific information like the experiences of existing staff and campus policies before they submit a job application.
Reflections
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Consider mobile-first implementation during the lo-fi prototyping phase. This would have optimized the website experience for busy parents and caregivers
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Recruit more parents for usability studies for authentic feedback.
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Beginning our content generation (e.g., creating new copy, photos, and branding) earlier in the process would have given us more time for interface and interaction design.
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