BSBI website
Role UX/UI Designer:
Established in April 2017, Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI) was launched by Global University Systems (GUS). As a higher education provider, BSBI offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in subjects such as business administration, finance, marketing, health and much more.
The challenge:
The owners want to revamp their website in order to appeal to new customers and showcase the wide selection of undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate courses.
Outcome:
A usable and aesthetically appealing online platform.
Research
Define users’ motivations, needs and frustrations when enquiring about courses on the website.
Understand what makes a student experience satisfying.
Understand industry standards and what features/services/offerings give BSBI a competitive edge in Berlin, Germany.
Identify areas of improvement for the current website.
Competitive Analysis - Research
Working from my secondary research, I analysed some of BSBI’s competitors in the education industry.
I uncovered the strengths and weaknesses of the business's direct competitors GISMA and Otto Beisheim School of Management.
Market Research - Research
First, I conducted secondary research to familiarise myself with the national and local business colleges. I collected information from articles and case studies on trends, challenges and areas for growth to identify industry standards and user expectations.
Interviews
Empathising with the target audience is a crucial step in the design thinking process. Therefore, it was essential to go out in the field and interact with real customers. I spent a day at BSBI chatting with students about their motivations, needs and frustrations while studying whilst also gathering information on how interactive they found the website.
Research assumptions:
- Customers expect enquiry options on a college website.
- Customers care about the values of the college.
- Affordability and quality are the most important factors for students when choosing where to develop their careers.
- Customers choose BSBI for its affordability and its base in Berlin.
Clustering interview responses allowed me to discover trends and patterns from which insights could be constructed. Through this process I identified several user needs:
- Customers need to know that BSBI sells high quality products.
- Customers need engagement with the company and its employees.
- Customers need to see the unique identity and brand of the company.
Customers need to know they’ll find what they’re looking for on the BSBI website.
Persona creation
Next, I used all of the qualitative data I gathered during the research process to create Arjun, my persona. Arjun spent his childhood living in many countries and cultivated a passion for marketing. He seeks to find the perfect MA to improve his career as a Marketing Director.
Define & Ideate
Point of view statements and ‘how might we’ questions:
After wrapping up primary research, I dug deeper into the insights I had generated. First, I restructured my findings from the POV statements into an actionable problem statement that defines the design challenge. Next, I restructured those POV statements into ‘how might we’ questions that would generate solution-oriented brainstorming.
Now that I had empathised with the target users and identified their needs, I needed to define the solution. I reflected on the business goals, user goals and technical considerations to find a happy medium for all stakeholders. Once I had identified common areas, I could decide what product features were necessary for the prototype.
Information Architecture
I created a high-level list of site features to further define and guide the vision for the product. Prioritising the features with supporting research created a clear order of execution.
Interaction Design
I completed a task flow and user flow to imagine the ways a user might navigate through the site to achieve their goals. These tools allowed me to ensure that the information was organised in a way that is intuitive to the user.
Test
Mid-fidelity wireframes
I created a low-fidelity prototype of the desktop site in XD. I created a UI requirements document to outline all of the features and elements I wanted to incorporate into the design.
Responsive design:
At this point in the design process, I needed to think about how I wanted the site to look on different screen sizes. It was essential that the website could be presented as well on a mobile device as it could when in desktop size. I created responsive wireframes for BSBI’s key pages and began to flesh them out.
