In the heart of Midtown Toronto

Mount Pleasant Village (MPV) Business Improvement Area (BIA)

MPV-BIA is mandated and aims to support the businesses located in this area. They aim to make the shopping experience better for the community and visitors.  

 

Role

Methodology

User Researcher, UX/ interaction/ Service Designer

Stakeholder interview & workshop, Survey, User Interview, Usability Testing, Card Sorting

Tool Used

Team & Timeline

Sana, Sophia, Caelan, Joyce, Mikella(Jan-Apr 2022)

Figma, Miro, Google Suite, Optimal Workshop, Google Analytics

Devices

Active Site Views

Mobile (49.8%), Desktop (42.9%), Tablet (7.3%)

Average 2.9 K

How can we make the information accessible to the visitors of the Mount Pleasant village website?

In this capstone project, my teammates and I met with stakeholders to define our project scope and identify business goals.

My Process from identifying the problem to solving it

 

Who

Identified two user groups

  • Visitors

  • Businesses/Stores

How

  • 1st round: Mixed User interview and usability testing sessions, Survey

  • 2nd round: Usability testing of high-fidelity prototypes , Card sorting

 

Why

Mixed User interview and usability testing: to understand visitors general experience but evaluate their experience with MPV website

Survey: collect quantitative data such as demographic and shopping experience habits

Card sorting: found some information architecture issues through usability testing, did Card sorting to understand user’s mental model

 

What

Found main pain points

  1. Unclear organization goals

  2. Scattered information

  3. Confusing search function

Produced

  • Current/envisioned future visitor’s journey map

  • Business model & Value proposition

  • Personal, Empathy map, High-fid prototypes

Current Journey Map

The experience map follows persona, Julie, as she discovers and navigates Mount Pleasant Village's (MPV) website.

  • We had challenges to recruit Business users (members of MPV BIA), based on our stakeholders’ interviews and project timeline, we focused on Visitor user group (visitor’s of Mount Pleasant t shopping strip).

  • Reviewed Google Analytics to collect some analytics to inform next steps:

    • Which devices are being used

      • Helped us to decide which device should we do prototyping and testing to meet the deadline.

    • Which browsers

      • To make sure, we consider browsers limitations and constraints

    • Time on specific pages

      • This shows what kind of content, users are interested in

    • Most visited pages

      • This shows which page is reached the most

    • Site referrals and sources

      • Which sources are being used by users and useful to guide the user to the website

 
 
 
 

While we have included touchpoints relevant to persona’s discovery process and engagement with businesses, such as interaction with social media, for the most part, we have centred Julie's experience around her interaction with the website. In this scenario, Julie is a first time user of the MPV website, and so takes the time to explore some of the navigational menu options, store categories and search functionality on the site.

Built integrated store pages with News, promo/events

  • Lessons Learned

    • Don't Reinvent The Wheel: be conscious and aware of existing solutions.

    • Lean evaluation is your best bet when it comes to budget and time constraints.

    • Stakeholder engagement matters: Understanding stakeholders' goals through 1:1 interviews or alignment workshops.