Digital Content Strategy
Project Overview
Client
OYNA (formerly Twin Cities Adventure Play) offers a variety of products and services to promote wellness through play and advocate for the importance of play in everyone’s lives.
Challenge
Because of COVID-19 constraints, the client had to quickly diversify (and suspend some of) their product offerings and needed help prioritizing their content on their website. Our challenge was to develop a sustainable and scalable strategy for presenting OYNA’s products and services to increase user engagement and conversion rates.
Our Process
Stakeholder interview → Competitive analysis → Directed Storytelling Interviews → Wireframing/Information Architecture → Concept evaluations → High-fidelity prototyping → Presentation and Prototype Package
Although this process appears linear, it actually involved an iterative process of prototyping and evaluation similar to the agile process.
Solution
A sustainable and scalable digital content strategy. This strategy consisted of condensing all product offerings to a “Let’s Play” header, featuring top products under “Most Popular,” and streamlining the product purchase flow.
Outcomes
If applied by the client, this strategy should yield an increase conversions rates.
Design Team
Asef Chowdhury and Sarah Monson
My Role
As a pair, we equally worked on the initial generative research and concept evaluations. I was responsible for developing low- and mid-fidelity prototypes in Sketch and Invision and preparing the presentation slide deck.
Tools
Methods
Zoom
Miro
Pen and Paper
Sketch
Invision
Optimal Workshop (Card Sort)
Keynote
Stakeholder Interview
Competitive Analysis
Directed Storytelling Interviews
Content Inventory
Concept Evaluations
Card Sorting
Wireframing
Prototyping
Deliverables
Methods and Deliverables
Understanding Client Goals
We met with the client to learn about the history and vision for OYNA, previous partnerships, current challenges, and goals for the future.
Client’s goal: Identify ways to better utilize OYNA’s digital platforms to communicate product offerings and boost user engagement.
Understanding the Space
We conducted a competitive analysis to gain insights into:
E-commerce best practices for increasing audience engagement
How similar businesses organize and communicate their product and service offerings
We identified the following set of features utilized in industry:
Clear mission
Playful tone
Social media integration
Display of credibility
Covid statement
Product gallery & detail
Purchase journey 3 components
(Learn more, Share, Buy)
Simple header navigation
Key takeaway: The OYNA website clearly displays its organizational mission and uses a playful, engaging tone but we found an opportunity for improvement in the other categories.
Directed Storytelling Interviews
We conducted directed storytelling interviews with parents to learn what kinds of leisure activities families do during Covid to have fun and connect with each other, what they used to do before Covid, and what kinds of information/criteria is important to before parents register their kids for activities during and post-Covid.
We learned:
Parents want (and seek out) safety protocol and product-specific FAQ
Parents use instagram as resources for activities to do with kids
Word of mouth is the primary means of sharing/marketing OYNA's offerings
What OYNA’s website could look like
Working from key findings from the competitive analysis and user interviews, I started sketching wireframes to incorporate 1) A more unified header navigation and 2) Features found on majority competitor websites (e.g., covid statement, social media gallery). We played with different header navigation categories with which to conduct concept evaluations.
Homepage (version 1)
About Us Page
Homepage (version 2)
Product Gallery Page
Concept Evaluations
To learn which header navigation categories resonated with users, we conducted several concept evaluations with OYNA users and other participants familiar with e-commerce and marketing practices.
Card Sorting
Since OYNA’s products are inherently tailored towards a particular age group, we wanted to evaluate if this is an effective type of categorization. We ran a card sorting method to see how participants naturally group all of OYNA’s offerings.
Key finding: Half our participants used some form of an age-based categorization.
Our Proposed Solution
Working from findings from generative research phase in conjunction with concept evaluations, we made changes in these four focus areas of the OYNA website create a more sustainable and scalable strategy for OYNA:
Homepage
Header Navigation
About OYNA
Product Purchase Flow
Presentation and Prototype Package
We presented our digital content strategy which centers on: a proposed header navigation and a consistent product purchase flow.
A New Website
The client was so pleased with our recommendations, she immediately put our changes into effect within one week of delivering our prototype package. Although the implementation of our design strategy was too recent to yield immediate results, if applied by the client, this strategy should yield an increase conversions rates.