Igniter.Asia

Background

Igniter.Asia is an e-commerce platform that allows people to start their own business by setting up a free web store.

Only 50% of people who visited the site created an account, our challenge was to increase sign-ups. Since the site would be accessed on various devices, our redesign would also have to be responsive.

Role

Project Manager & UX Designer

The team also consisted of a UX Researcher and UI Designer.

Methods

Expert Review, Competitive Analysis, Secondary Research, Interviews, Surveys, Hand Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Building an Understanding

We first familiarized ourselves with the company and industry by performing an expert review of the website. The client had already identified their target market to be housewives, university students, and part-time sellers. Therefore, we researched information to learn about the target market and e-commerce in Malaysia.

Next, we performed a competitive analysis to help us understand what features competitors offered and how Igniter.Asia compared.

Key Learnings

In order to uncover the pain points and frustrations of potential e-commerce sellers interested in using the Igniter.Asia platform, we needed to perform interviews with people in Malaysia. However, we received no responses to our requests for interviews. Due to time constraints, we worked around this by interviewing people in the US who sold online instead. We then validated our findings by sending out a survey to support what we learned from the interviews.

1. The main factors when deciding on an e-commerce platform were whether it is easy to use and popular or well-known.

2. It was difficult for users to get an overview of the benefits of using Igniter.Asia since this information is scattered throughout several pages.

3. Competitors' websites include success stories, reviews, or statistics that help build trust.

Forming the Personas

Due to the short timeline of the project, our research was only able to provide a partial picture of users and their goals and pain points. Therefore, we combined what we learned from the research phase with assumptions that represent our theories about users to create proto-personas. While these helped guide our design decisions, further research is needed in order to validate these proto-personas.

Our primary persona is Zikri, a college student who wants to start his own business. Our secondary persona is Aishah, a housewife who wants to earn additional income to help support her family.

Attracting Potential Users

To increase sign-ups, we needed to attract potential e-commerce sellers. On the home page, we included a clear call-to-action with an attractive title to encourage potentials users to sign up. (During our presentation, even one of stakeholders said she would want to sign up after seeing the title!)

To cultivate trust and build credibility, we included statistics such as potential customers users could reach and sales from the platform in the previous year. We alsoadded Success Stories to the home page, which helps show how others have been successful through using the platform.

In addition to having positive feedback from current users, it is also necessary to show the features or benefits of Igniter.Asia. Before the redesign, these were scattered throughout several pages making it hard for potential users to find. With this in mind, we created a new “Features” page with everything in one place.

Ensuring a Smooth Sign-Up Process

Once a potential user has decided to sign up for the platform, it is important to ensure the process is free from any friction and avoid users getting frustrated and giving up midway through the sign-up process.

To meet accessibility guidelines, we moved the form labels that were originally within the form fields to be top aligned. This allows users can double check information they’ve entered without having to rely on memory.

During usability testing, one feedback we had received was that it was unclear what should be done next after completing the sign-up process. We reiterated our design by adding an additional screen that includes instructions on what steps should be taken next in order to start selling on the platform.

Results and Reflections

The client appreciated the feedback our team provided regarding the usability of the current site. We also recommended client to be more active on their Facebook page, especially since many university students use Facebook, to help spread awareness of the company and increase sign-ups on the platform.

Despite it being my first time leading a team on a project, I found it both exciting and fulfilling. It was important that everyone on the team was clear what work needed to be done and things were going according to schedule in order to meet the client deadline.

If we had more time, I would interview members of the target audience. Only by fully understanding the potential users can we ensure the new design would address their needs.

"Thank you Jessica for leading the team to complete Igniter.Asia's UX project on time. I am glad that Jessica and her team were able to help us in reviewing the UX aspect for Igniter.Asia and produced an amazing analysis for us. We appreciate your efforts and your valuable recommendations for our platform enhancement. We believe the enhancement recommendations will definitely help us in our conversion rate."

- Alice Foong, General Manager of Igniter.Asia