Table of Contents
01. Overview
02. Ideation
03. Research
04. Design
05. Conclusion
Scroll down to begin reading this story.
01. Overview
Talk About Talk is an online platform that helps ambitious executives boost their confidence and improve their communication skills by 1-on-1 coaching, corporate workshops, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. This website is founded and run by executive communication coach Dr. Andrea Wojnicki.
Our team was consulted with the intention of improving website conversions and metrics, and establishing greater credibility with existing and potential clientele.
Tools:
Miro
Adobe XD
Adobe Photoshop
My Role:
UX research
UX research
UX/UI design
Content strategy
Project management
Timeline:
Overall: 4 months
Discovery and research: 2 months
Design and testing: 2 months
Collaborators:
4 team members (all acting as UX/UI designers and content strategists)
02. Ideation
When we first received the project, we did an initial examination to understand the website's current state. There was a lot of content available on the platform, yet the information hierarchy and navigation did not provide the smoothest experience. We immediately determined that our client already had wonderful content in place—our job, then, was to figure out how we could optimize that user journey.
The Problem
With a growing potential of following from global executives, Talk About Talk needed to engage its clients by establishing trust and confidence in its resources and ability to coach them towards their career goals. Talk About Talk already offered a plethora of resources, but users could be overwhelmed by the information and fail to recognize the primary message of the website.
The website also needed to showcase Dr. Wojnicki’s professional personality, capabilities, and genuine desire to help her clients.
The Goal
We needed to develop an intuitive navigation system for Talk About Talk, so that users could find the right tools or materials to aid them in advancing their individual careers.
03. Research
To learn more about our client and its competitors, we conducted 4 main research tasks: a current state analysis, a competitive analysis, a user interview, and a user survey. Here are the key findings from each task:
Current State Analysis:
As mentioned above, Talk About Talk's website contained a plethora of content. After examining the strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for each page, our team highlighted the following points of interest:
1) A large portion of the content was repeated throughout the website, without any consistency.
2) Information was buried within pages (sometimes unrelated), making it difficult for users to find the content they needed.
More findings from this analysis are available below (click on each image for a closer read).
Competitive Analysis:
We identified and assessed 5 direct competitors for this analysis: Caroline Goyder, Public Words, Dorie Clark, TheAchieved, and Karen Donaldson. Our evaluation criteria included the current website design, ease of use, service offerings, client reviews, call-to-actions, availability of a contact or team page, contact method, social media channels, and more.
The results of the analysis showed that all of the organizations had an About Us page and were featured on the most widely used social media channels. Talk About Talk and Caroline Goyder excelled with their implementation of an appointment booking system, while the other organizations did not have this feature. From this, we knew that we needed to redesign Talk About Talk's appointment booking page, to elevate the user experience.
The complete competitor scorecard is available below.
Click on the image to zoom in.
The Users:
Prior to our research, Talk About Talk had informed us of their 2 target user groups:
Primary Target User Group
Mid to senior level executives: Ambitious executives who want to improve their communication skills to further their careers, including consultants, lawyers, and entrepreneurs.
Secondary Target User Group
Human resources professionals: Corporate professionals who need 1-on-1 coaching and workshops, including VPs, bankers, and consultants.
User Interview
To better understand the target users' behaviour, motivations, and frustrations, we interviewed an established client of Talk About Talk. In a 30 minute interview, we asked the participant questions about why they were interested in using Talk About Talk's services and which of its resources they preferred.
From this interview, we learned that the participant was mostly interested in the 1-on-1 coaching sessions with Dr. Wojnicki. They also wished to improve their confidence and communication skills specifically for their career growth.
User Survey
Our team also conducted a user survey for the purpose above. Through Google Forms, we surveyed 3 established clients of Talk About Talk (their answers were recorded anonymously). As with the interview, we wanted to learn about the users' interest in Talk About Talk's resources, as well as their individual learning styles. This would help us to determine our content strategy for the website, and how we could best optimize the website's features.
Some key results of this survey are available in the images below.
From both the interview and survey, we discovered that Talk About Talk’s clientele are primarily executives who view communication, problem-solving, and teamwork skills as critical to their roles. They have a passion for their work and look towards coaching resources for career development (such as podcasts, workshops, and company-based platforms). Our research also determined that they were most interested in 1-on-1 coaching, with executive presence being the topic that they were most interested in exploring with Talk About Talk.
04. Design
At this stage, we were ready to analyze our data to begin with the design phase. We knew that we needed to leverage the existing content to create an improved content strategy for the website. The current layout was difficult to navigate, and some of the content (such as the podcast show notes) was not reaching the users to their full potential.
The Sitemap
The Talk About Talk website was filled with valuable content, information, and resources. However, we found that there was a high number of bounce rates, meaning that website visitors left the site without taking any action. Digging deeper into the issue, we realized again that the website navigation made it difficult for users to access this exceptional content.
To remedy this, we developed a new sitemap to open a clear path for users towards communications knowledge. We believed that the integration of the new sitemap would increase website engagement, which would also allow for an expansion of Talk About Talk’s clientele.
Click on the image to zoom in.
The Personas
Now it was time to kick our imagination into full gear. Using the information from the user interview and survey, we created 5 personas to help build our prototype design. Each persona had a different goal in improving their communication skills, and were all specific to their individual needs and motivations. For example, persona Jen Walters wished to improve her leadership skills in order to confidently develop her own consulting firm.
Click on each image for a closer read.
The Prototype
Using Adobe XD, our team created a high fidelity prototype with an improved content strategy. We prioritized simplicity and consistency—we removed the duplication of content across pages, and restructured the visuals and CTA buttons so that they created a cohesive image.
As we all took charge of a specific section, I developed the Podcast pages of the website. My goal was to simplify the content and create a more immersive, intuitive auditory experience.
Both the original Podcast page (left) and my prototyped Podcast page (right) are available below.
The previous version of the Podcast page.
The prototyped version of the Podcast page.
The complete interactive prototype can be found at the following link: Talk About Talk Prototype.
The complete documentation of this project (including the key findings, content strategy, and recommendations) can be found at the following link: Talk About Talk UX Report.
05. Conclusion
Simplicity is how content can truly shine. Talk About Talk is a highly dynamic, experienced company with many strong resources to offer to its clients. By simplifying its content and restructuring its navigation, users will be able to enjoy a seamless, intuitive digital journey while focusing on their career and communication goals.
