UX Researcher, Information Architect, UX Designer
1 Project Manager, 1 Web Developer
June–July 2021
XpertVR is one of Canada’s leading Virtual Reality (VR) development companies. The company provides a range of services geared toward research and training. These include VR simulation development, data collection, VR hardware sourcing, consulting, and tech support.
XpertVR serves three types of users: trainers, research participants, and academic researchers.
A high level breakdown of XpertVR's three user types.
Although XpertVR was receiving monthly enquiries for VR projects, they found that the majority of these came from referrals and Clutch reviews. When potential clients emailed the company through their marketing website, the emails often expressed uncertainty about what XpertVR did. The potential clients didn’t know how the company could address their specific VR needs.
I restructured the sitemap and created wireframes for a new web experience based on customer goals. The redesigned site allowed the primary persona—the academic researcher—and two secondary personas—vocational trainers and research participants—to more easily find information and request services from XpertVR.
I started the project by taking a step back and understanding who uses VR in an educational setting. XpertVR didn't have clear models of their three user types, so I posted a survey at Brock University, a leader in VR in the classroom in Canada, and several VR educational groups on Facebook.
The screener led to interviews exploring participants' goals and frustrations when using VR in an educational setting and ultimately helped define personas and customer journeys through the XpertVR site.
Screener responses showed that, for the most part:
Most people were beginners with VR.
Most people learned about VR through social media or product/service websites.
The screener had 22 participants, from which I selected six for user interviews. The criteria for selection were:
The interviews consisted of background questions to learn more about the user's experience with VR and a contextual inquiry to observe how they interact with the XpertVR site.
The interviews revealed two main frustrations with the XpertVR site. Users felt lost within large sections of copy without clear CTA's to guide them to the information or services they needed. They were also unsure of XpertVR's value or impact, causing less trust and desire to do business.
I used these findings, along with the commons paths taken through the contextual inquiry, to create customer journeys through XpertVR's site. Unfortunately, this was limited to just researchers and study participants, since these were the only candidates available from the screener.
A customer journey map showing a researcher's path to conversion with XpertVR.
With the customer journeys defined, I started working on a sitemap that would easily fit the users’ mental models. This was a balancing act with the marketing and branding research that was happening simultaneously. Following the research, I prioritized:
The XpertVR sitemap, with branding and customer journeys incorporated.
After iterating over the sitemap and reviewing with the team, I created wireframes to validate the structure and flow of the site. The wireframes focused on the three most important pages for XpertVR personas: the homepage, Our Story, and a services subpage—VR Training & E-learning.
The homepage was the most substantial of the three pages and had to provide entry points into XpertVR’s business. I organized the page to feature the most why-based messaging above the fold and followed the the site map for the order of page content. Stakeholders and users provided feedback to help shape the next iteration.
V1 of the homepage with annotations based on stakeholder feedback.
At the time of writing this case study, the site was in the final stages of QA. You’ll be able to see the new XpertVR site here.
The final draft of the XpertVR homepage, after revising the wireframe above.
The biggest challenge was interview format. Participants were exhausted by the end of the hour-long session. This might have affected the accuracy of the findings.
It would’ve been better to have a larger sample size and explore each user type and their journey with a separate group of 3-5 participants.
Restructuring interview format would likely improve accuracy of findings.
