Redesign of BigScreenLive's Online Registration Process


Synopsis


Users were having problems with the online registration screens when signing up for BigScreenLive causing many of them to drop out before completing the process. The company wanted a redesigned process with the goal of increasing the rate of successful registrations. I worked in a team of three to design a process that was clearer to users and accounted for the different types of users who would use it.


Research


This project had a short timeframe limiting the opportunities to do a usability test with the various users. To keep user needs in mind, my team asked me to take detailed notes of my first time attempting to register for the program. I treated this as a heuristic evaluation and recorded my findings for each step of the registration process. I gathered actual user complaints from the marketing team and combined them with my notes to form the basis for defining the user needs and in turn make the process more streamlined and intuitive.


Recommendations


Based on my research I came up with three scenarios and developed use cases for each. I then worked with the website/interface designer to create a set of recommendations for both the content and the page layout during each step.


Improving the usability so that users could finish the process was a central goal of the project. The following changes were made to reach that goal:


  • Removed unnecessary information and altered the page layout so that nearly all pages fit within one screen length
  • Created markers that clearly showed the users what stage of the process they were in
  • Consistency in buttons and labels
  • Removed links that were perceived as giving users too many options
  • Added images where necessary to give users visual cues


What did I learn?


The importance of keeping the user in mind during the design process became clear from the first time I used the original registration process. The process had many usability problems that led to confusion and even frustration. By working from usability principles and empathizing with the user, I found that the solution was much more suited to meet the users' needs while satisfying the business' needs as well. Within a month we saw that the percentage of successful registrations had increased.