Parks Victoria Website

-- The Approach

The project came with many stakeholders, epic owners and internal opinions. In order to eliminate assumptions and long winded conversations, it was important to bring in a strong voice of the customer to the table. By taking on an agile UX approach, we developed a strong understanding of the target audience and market, Which lead to a strategy that aligned both the goals of the organization and park visitors.

-- Understanding

To understand the core organisational and website goals, initial stakeholder interviews were undertaken. Further to that, a product retrospective was run on the website, to align the team and highlight positive and negative takeaways from the existing website.

By visiting different parks in Victoria we had the opportunity to meet up with park rangers and all the different types of visitors that were at the parks. Park rangers divulged on their experience with visitors and passed on the types of questions and issues that arise when humans meet nature. Speaking with park visitors uncovered insights and common themes across their decision journeys, personalities and needs.

A competitor review was conducted on a series of websites that were commonly used by the visitors we met, which included Trip Advisor, Google travel guides and other activity sites( trail hiking and mtb sites). A focus on other popular national park websites around the world and travel guide websites, such as national National geographic and lonely planet where also reviewed as a direct competitor For indirect market research, I focused on companies that sold technical and highly specced products, however focussed on lifestyle when it came to marketing. This included products form the smartphone, automotive and residential building markets. This presented opportunities on how other industries approached similar problems and marketed their products to customers.

-- Identifying the problems

With an exploration into personas and mapping out different user experience journeys, it was possible to highlight key issues and takeaways. Although many findings were revealed, content on the Parks Victoria website proved to be a core issue amongst users, as it failed to align with their needs. Long winded, technically written content was seen to be dull, uninspiring and failed to paint a picture of the overall adventure they may experience. Site navigation also proved tedious, with relevant information buried across multiple pages. The information that did provide useful reflected on quick look up cases such as contact details, operational hours, condition reports, campground information and so on

Researched showed that different users used different tools during the research planning stage, but the approach to research was generally the same, having experience as their main focus. Common priority themes that persuaded users to convert included photography, intriguing location overview, location and reviews. Secondary themes included accommodation and facilities.

-- Tackling the issues as a team

Through a series of brainstorming sessions with the team and different stakeholders, we addressed the pain points and identified multiple ways to meet the needs of the visitors, whilst staying aligned to the organizational goals. The winning ideas were filtered using and impact / effort matrix in order to update and prioritise user stories for an MVP release. Following up with a roadmapping workshop, kept all team members on the same page.

-- Blueprinting a solution

Whilst working with a team of content producers, a content strategy was defined and worked into wireframes, from low to high fidelity. The direction focused on delivering content across four stages (Engagement -> Conversion -> Planing -> Additional information). This structure allowed content tone to be tailored to the users experience along their journey, whilst delivering a more consistent experience throughout the site.

Initially for the engagement stage, the aim was to deliver a snapshot of the of the type of experience the location has to offer, through imagery, headline and iconography. This engagement extended to a more detailed description of the location. After engagement, the aim was to convert, an opportunity to push certain places, camping areas and tours within a park. Planning section looked to simplify content, with iconography and brief descriptions, in order to deliver key sought out information as quickly as possible. Secondary information focused content that was necessary, however had very little value to the majority of users.

-- Testing and fine tuning

Before diving into final visual designs and build, a series of tests where made, which included treejacking and prototype usability testing. These test where used to evaluate navigation, content value and task accomplishments. From our findings, I could validate or improve the solution before investing in development.

-- Design to engage

When it came to marketing an experience in nature, the natural beauty of the locations could already do most of the selling. It was key to have a strong focus on beautiful lifestyle imagery and copywriting that complimented and attracted users to a location. Simple and clean visual design layouts allowed beautiful lifestyle imagery and persuasive copywriting to be the hero on the page.

-- Future-proofing design

As an MVP release with an aim for continual growth and improvements, it was important to lock in a style and library that could easily expand with the future of the project. This is why I created a design library using atomic pattern principles, in order to ensure future modules and pages would follow consistent design styles and be easily managed.