Search, Explore and Purchase Journey

Standard Organization Store

Training Products

Role: Project Lead, Research and Design Lead

April - June 2024

The existing web page for training products description page

Overview

The CSA Training Products are developed to provide standards-based learning solutions to help individuals and organizations improve safety and increase environmental sustainability and implement effective business practices. These products are available within a wide range with dates and locations from coast to coast. Our goal is to improve the discoverability of training products and to make the purchasing process more streamlined, clear, and easy.

Our early analysis and observations identified UX challenges during the purchasing process that highly affect end users’ and internal staffs’ experience with the store platform. The experience includes search, discovery and purchasing flows. Our mission is to first analyze these challenges in detail through multiple research methodologies and second to develop low-fi design solutions and test them through user interviews and identify the potential pain points and the unmet needs. By collecting these data, we will be able to enhance the CSA Training Product’s purchasing experience and offer a satisfactory process for users.

The existing webpage for training products description page

Identified Challenges/ Painpoints

Showing the “No Seat available” to user as default
Customers experience confusion with the Training Formats’ label (Public - Onsite - Online).
Users need to take extra steps to find the course.
Users are not aware of the course’s updates.
Product’s French and English versions are in two separate pages.
No Connection between the two parts of a course.
Users are not able to filter options to find different courses.
Information is not organized

Research Objectives:

Objective 1: Understanding Customer PerspectivesObjective 1: Understanding Customer Perspectives

We need to identify our users’ Unmet and Unknown needs as well as any unidentified challenges and pain points through the Training product’s purchasing experience. Recognizing and addressing these details will help us discover new opportunities to enhance the design.

Objective 2: Analyzing and Optimizing Product Listing Page and Product Description Page Features

We want to analyze the existing features and how users interact with them and identify if any of these features are disrupting user’s experience while purchasing their product. We also want to test and offer new features to users to enhance their purchasing experience.

Research Methodologies:

Benchmarking: Comparing similar companies’ end to end training product purchases. Such as searching for the product, discovering, and highlighting and selling it. We’d like to learn the business processes and performance metrics and evaluating the quality and time and cost.
Developing Hypotheses: Preparing the hypothesis for each of the identified challenges to analyze and further assess the pain points and start early design solutions for the user interview.
Wireframing: Creating Low-Fi wireframing based on the identified challenges and the benchmarking data to practice different approaches and hypothesis.
High Fidelity Prototyping: Transferring the low-fi wireframes to the high fidelity and making them ready for the user interviews to analyse usability and desirability.
Customer Interviews: Our primary focus is on our individual or business customers. We aim to understand how they use our product, what their experiences are, what challenges they face, and what other needs they might have.
Internal Partner Interviews: Engaging with our team members helps us align with company goals and gain insight into the Training product's direction. Their feedback offers a broader perspective, allowing us to integrate our product seamlessly within the CSA ecosystem.

Hypotheses

We have formulated 16 hypotheses in response to the identified challenges. These hypotheses have been categorized according to their importance and level of certainty. Notably, 10 out of the 16 hypotheses are aligned with UX best practices and established patterns. For further validation, we have selected 6 of these hypotheses to undergo usability and desirability testing through user interviews.

Challenge	Hypothesis	Design Code
Challenge 1: Showing “No Seats Available” to user	Hypothesis 4:  Adding the Waitlist option to the PDP will help users who are interested in a specific date and were not able to book that for themselves, get a notification when a spot opens, and they can enroll. This can be achieved by "add to waitlist" button.	C1H4
Challenge 2: Users experience confusion with the Training Formats.	Hypothesis 2: Sending an update notification to user through email regarding the courses will help user to get notified about the update.	C2H4
Challenge 4: Users are not aware of the course’s updates.	Hypothesis 2: Sending an update notification to user through email regarding the courses will help user to get notified about the update.	C4H2
Challenge 4: Users are not aware of the course’s updates.	Hypothesis 1: Showing the "Updated Content" or "New date" next to the courses title on both PDP and PLP pages will help user to get notified about the update. This can be achieved by badge/chips feature.	C4H1
Challenge 6: No Connection between the two parts of a course	Hypothesis 1: Adding a related courses to the PDP will help user to identify and find the similar or next in the row courses easier, this will be achieved by a Tab on top menu or noted in the Overview tab or in an accordion menu feature after the product's description.	C6H1
Challenge 7: Users are not able to filter options to find different courses.	Hypothesis 1: Adding the option seeing different types of the sessions (virtual/in-person, etc.) will help user to see and decide which one they prefer to be enrolled in. This can be practiced on both PLP and PDP and can be achieved by checkboxes or toggle switch in PDP and filter menu options in PLP.	C7H1

Low Fi Wireframing based on Hypotheses:

User Interviews Results:

Approach and Analysis

We employed a “Qualitative Research” approach to assess the usability and desirability of both current and new features on the CSA Store’s training product page. Initially, we developed designs aimed at addressing existing challenges. Subsequently, we presented these designs to customers to gain insights into their behaviour when interacting with the features.

Our process involved creating a User Interview guide and selecting 8 participants from a pool of 27 who had completed screener forms via recruitment emails. We sent initial invitations, outlining the interview procedure, and requested preferred interview times. After receiving time preferences from our selected participants, we scheduled 50-minute interviews with each of them. Prior to the interviews, we obtained consent forms and assured participants of the privacy surrounding transcripts and recordings.

During the sessions, we delved into specific challenges and overall experiences related to purchasing the Training Product. Additionally, we presented high-fidelity wireframes to test hypotheses regarding the desirability and usability of new features. Our diverse participant group, representing various professional backgrounds, allowed us to identify distinct and common approaches to both new and existing features.

In total, we collected 236 observations from the 8 interviews, synthesis process helped us identify the unmet needs and desires.

Key Insights:

Challenge 1: Showing “No Seats Available” to user 

Customers appreciate a banner showing the next available date to help with planning and suggest adding a button to navigate directly to that date.
Customers expressed interest in a Waitlist button on the price card but sought clarity on how it works, including their chances of enrolment and the number of others on the list, with some finding the process potentially stressful.
Customers prefer to see available seats displayed first on the PDP, followed by a date picker to view and select the next available date, with an option to book the next part of the course immediately if applicable.

Challenge 2: Users experience confusion with the Training Formats. 

Customers responded positively to combining training formats on the course product page, appreciating the use of tabs to easily find their intended course.
Customers found the terms "Public Training" and "Online Training" unclear, often misinterpreting their meanings and expressing confusion about their functionality and redundancy.

Challenge 4: Users are not aware of the course’s updates

Customers prefer clear, descriptive badges that highlight what is new, such as "New Location," "New Session," or "New Content," to improve clarity and relevance.
Customers responded positively to the "Send Me Updates" feature, preferring email notifications and suggesting improvements to the update message wording and button placement

Challenge 6: No Connection between the two parts of a course

Customers found the "Related Products" tab confusing, mistaking it for a format tab, but expressed interest in viewing different parts of a course within their respective format tabs on the product page.

Challenge 7: Users are not able to filter options to find different courses

Customers appreciated the "Show available dates only" filter but found the "Type" and "Location" drop-down, as well as the distinction between "Virtual" and "Online Training," confusing and unclear in purpose.

Designs based on the research result:

Finalized desktop design after implementing stakeholder feedback

Finalized desktop and mobile designs after implementing stakeholder feedback

Next Steps:

Discuss the designs with stakeholders and get their feedback
Apply the feedbacks on the designs.
Create the Mobile Designs and prepare the designs for the development
Initiate a separate User Research on Training Formats Terminology collaborating with Amanda Halperin, the Information Designer in the team. (This research took place from July 29 to August 29 2024)
Evaluate the customers experience with the new updates using Full Story platform and customer service calls.
Schedule a follow up call/email with the interviewed users to ask for their feedback on the new design

The User Research on Training Formats’ Terminology Resulted in changing the existing terminologies to the following before the launch in October 2024:

Public Training to Instructor-led Training
On-Site Training to Private Instructor-Led Training
Online Training to Self-Paced Online

Please note that the presented designs here do not reflect this terminology research results.

Please don't hesitate to reach out; I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

in the meantime I would encourage you to visit the CSA Store yourself and further explore the design.

Go to Homepage