CASE STUDY: SITE REDESIGN
Georgia Aquarium
Project Management - User Research
Business Research - Branding
User Testing - Interaction Design
Summary
The Georgia Aquarium, located in Atlanta, is the largest public aquarium in the world, home to hundreds of marine species and thousands of animals across seven major galleries, with 10 M gallons of fresh and saltwater. The challenge with this project was to investigate deficiencies in their digital experiences. Charged with researching current experiences and focus on solving one key problem.
My Role
This project was completed by myself and three other team members. The four of us worked closely to plan, research, design and iterate. I managed the project by using Google Drive to organize our files and we communicated over Slack and Zoom. Once we synthesized the data, we all did some brainstorming and sketched our ideas out. I and one other team member digitized the wireframes into Sketch to begin testing. While half of the team conducted user testing, the other half made iterations to the results.
TIMELINE
2 Weeks
ROLE
Project Manager
UX Designer
OUTCOME
A seamless, easy to follow checkout process.
TOOLS
Sketch, InVision, Adobe CC, Whimsical, Miro
Understanding What Visitors Need
In order to understand the needs and pain points of the users, we conducted several interviews. We spoke with users between 23 and 55 years old to ask them about their experiences around the Georgia Aquarium. We wanted to know how they planned for their trip, why they would go to the aquarium and what hesitations they had when purchasing tickets. Through affinity mapping, we were able to reflect on the information which led us to discover some trends and patterns.
Some of those findings were:
Personas
After reflecting on the insights from the interviews, we began to craft a persona as a way to visualize the primary and users and to help key stakeholders gain sympathy for the target issues. We created a primary and secondary persona, Spontaneous Selena and her son Energetic Erik.
Selena’s Story.
Selena and her son Erik visit the aquarium occasionally. Her son has shown interest in marine life and Selena finds wildlife therapeutic. Selena has decided to take her son to the Georgia Aquarium at the last minute. The last time they visited the aquarium, it was too crowded and her son wasn’t able to touch the dolphins because they were closed for the day. Selena wants to make up for the last time and plan a day for her and her son to enjoy. Selena needs a way to plan their trip to the aquarium. She wants her son to have the best trip and get to experience meeting his favorite animal, a dolphin.
Understanding the Business
Through business analysis, we wanted to understand and find any trends that other local attractions were currently doing. Through competitive analysis, we also researched several companies that offered similar services in different industries.
PROBLEM
Visitors need a way to stay informed about the happenings of the aquarium so they can plan a last-minute trip. They want their guests to have the best experience without any long lines.
Approach
We realized the aquarium had a mobile app but there was no marketing being done to promote its use. We figured an app redesign to include more features that would solve the visitor’s pain points was the solution.
Essentially, we were adding more features to an app that wasn't used, not because it lacked features, but because no one knew it existed. We were possibly taking away from the experience while at the aquarium by asking the users to have this app open while navigating when people are coming to the aquarium to essentially step away from their phones to have a tranquil experience and interact with wildlife.
We also would have needed to offer some incentives to even get people to actually use the app in the first place, which would include some marketing/advertising on the site which wasn't what we came to help solve. We kept hitting bumps in the road and just when we thought we failed the Georgia Aquarium, we had our aha moment.
SOLUTION
The Georgia Aquarium needs a better checkout process on the existing website. We will optimize the checkout experience by introducing features that will allow visitors to make informed decisions about their last-minute visit to the aquarium.
User Flows
We started brainstorming some ideas on how Selena would be able to create the best experience for her and her son. We changed the checkout flow so that the user will pick a time and date and from there will be able to see what is available during that time. During the checkout process, the user can choose to use the suggested itinerary or choose their own experiences. After that, they have the option to purchase a parking ticket as well as meal and gift vouchers to enhance their experience at the aquarium.
Sketches + Wireframes
We started sketching out some ideas on how the process would look then digitized them into wireframes where we worked with the placement of the buttons and worked on the hierarchy of the content we wanted to add to the experience
Testing Our Solution
We initiated testing our mid-fidelity wireframes with users of varying ages & backgrounds. Our goal was to investigate the placement of information & affordances in the reimagined checkout process.
Next, we responded to our users’ concerns with a higher-fidelity prototype. This included adding color & imagery to further guide participants. Our aim was to improve comprehension & checkout speed.
What’s Next?
Given more time & larger scope, we would like to:
Deep dive into user personas: enhancing the process for large groups & organizations
Integrating the app into the user flow: to enhance the overall digital experience & provide an easy way for users to aggregate ticketing & itinerary information
Collaborate with the Marketing Department: to raise awareness for the app and to redesign design patterns to allow for a modern experience
Guerilla Testing: we would love to employ a deeper testing phase to uncover ways to further simplify & enhance the user experience both during checkout & at the physical venue
Further app development: The app provides many opportunities for improving time management at the venue & incentives for membership
Reflection
This project turned out well! If we had more time, we would have conducted more research on the checkout process. At first, we wanted to address all the features but we only needed to solve one. We came up with some good ideas! The team and I looked at the Georgia Aquarium app and realized it was already done. So we went back to the drawing board. We took a step back to let the data speak for itself. I enjoyed working with a team. It was nice to bounce ideas off of each other.