Banjo Robinson
A globe-trotting, letter-writing cat - what more could your child want?
Project Overview
Summary
This project delivered additional functionality and engaging ways of enticing potential new users of Banjo Robinson, a subscription-based pen pal service for children between the ages of 5 to 8. The full detailed case study is in the bottom half of this page.
Brief
The primary objective of this project was to engage people that are brand new to the site:
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What is Banjo Robinson and why is it interesting?
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How will the website engage parents, whilst attempting to capture their email address, their child’s information and writing the Post-Script (PS Message) in the process?
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Increase website conversion rate (currently stands at 1.5%).
My role
Working as part of a four person team, my role was to lead the design for the project. I followed the British Design Council’s Double Diamond process with its four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver.​
Source: The Design Council
Key deliverables
A number of deliverables were required for the project, including:
Tools
Figma, Google Forms, Google Slides, Marvel, Photoshop
Results
As part of our solution we successfully delivered five functions (either new or enhanced) to achieve the brief:
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How the product works
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Basket and checkout
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Personalisation (Cat Chat/Quiz)
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PS Messaging
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PS Reminders
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Next Steps
In addition to the deliver of the five functions, we also developed future functions for the client to consider:
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​Point-based system for PS message
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Quick Personalisation Form
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Delivery Progress
Client Debrief
It was fantastic to learn that they were extremely happy with our solutions and may consider taking the Personalisation quiz into the live website in a future release.
Beyond
By keeping in touch with the Banjo Robinson team, I've come to learn that the product was a finalist in the 2019 Web Summit in Lisbon! I am really happy for them and proud to have worked with them on the solution.
Personal Learnings
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There were also a number of personal learnings I took away from this project.
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I believe in delivering at a high standard and wanted to make this a team-wide goal. From the beginning, I used my past experiences to positively influence the team in the ways that we should work and the tools that we should use to help us achieve our goals as a team and what we need to deliver for the client. My overall ability to impact every stage of the double-diamond was appreciated, as per the feedback received from my teammates. Being process-driven and always linking back to the client problem was a key benefit to the team.
My proudest moments included setting the foundations by creating the paper and mid-fidelity prototypes, which is what the final delivery was based on but with the client branding laid over the top. I am really happy to have included elements of my personality in the solutions, including puns like ‘paw-gress bar' for the progress bar and assuming the role of Banjo himself for the Cat Chat/Quiz.
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From the get-go, this project was an exciting endeavour to be a part of. This was down to the client, the brief and the team that I was going to be working with.
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I wish my team and my client the very best for their future endeavours.
The first diamond helps people understand, rather than simply assume, what the problem is. It involves speaking to and spending time with people who are affected by the issues.
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After understanding the brief from the client, the team got together to understand the dynamics, strengths, weaknesses and the ground rules we wanted to operate by. Not only that, we also made sure that some task allocation was done early on not just based on strengths but weaknesses too - I had suggested this so that those that wanted to improve in certain areas take the opportunity to do so.
Once these initial activities were complete, we started working on the first set of discovery tasks. I also set up a 'team tracker', knowing that this document would be useful to help with work allocation, insights, risks and lessons learned.
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Competitor Analysis
In order to understand what the playing field was like and get a feel for what features are currently being offered, we carried out a competitor analysis. We found that there weren't any direct competitors but a few indirect.
User Research
We started off with a screener survey to help understand the potential market better and also shape our user interviews. We had response from 31 people at this stage.
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In order to understand how users felt about the current site, we conducted 5 usability tests. The insights from these tests were noted for use in the affinity mapping (below).
The research from the user interviews was synthesised into an affinity map, which is a tool that helps categorise common themes.
Design Studio
Having synthesised all of the research, we set up a Design Studio for the client. A Design Studio is a formal method to:
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focus design around specific problems
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rapidly generate many design solutions
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involve stakeholders in the design process
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involve developers in the design process
The insight gathered from the discovery phase can help you to define the challenge in a different way.
I was responsible for the entirety of this section.
User Persona
Synthesising the research led to the combining of the user interviews into one representation of our typical user, i.e. a user persona:
The Problem Storyboard
To visualise the overall problem of Joanna trying to engage Kelly during learning time, I created a storyboard:
User Journey
We then take our persona, Joanna, on her user journey. The flow kicks in when Jonna visits the Banjo Robinson website after being recommended it by a friend.
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An experience map shows the emotions that Joanna or Kelly (her daughter) might go through during this journey.
Flow
In order to break down what functionality we were taking forward into the solution, I created a flow to demonstrate not only the logic but also the order of events.
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Continually referring to the project brief and understanding our user research led to five key areas of function:
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How it works
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Basket & Checkout
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Personalisation quiz
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PS Message
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PS eMail Reminder
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The second diamond encourages people to give different answers to the clearly defined problem, seeking inspiration from elsewhere and co-designing with a range of different people.
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I did the paper and mid-fidelity prototyping on which the high-fidelty version was created. I consulted on the latter too.
Prototyping​
This stage involved developing many iterations of the prototype. Going from low to mid fidelity, we would conduct user testing after the next 'draft' was complete.
Some of the quotes from testing:
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“Stuff like that (big empty box), I just probably won’t fill it in because I have no idea what to put in it.”
"I feel like there should be an example inside the text box, like “Hi, what could I also write for ____.”
“6 month is too long. It’s not the matter of money, I want an option to try first. There are other platforms that give trial options.”
"If adding all these details takes too long, I would do this later and expect it to be saved, so I can complete it at a later stage"
"You should be warning about the quiz in advance or have it to fill it in advance"
“Quiz was engaging!”
Delivery involves testing out different solutions at small-scale, rejecting those that will not work and improving the ones that will.
The final stage of prototyping was to deliver the high-fidelity prototype.
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Because of the effort I'd taken of making sure the mid-fidelity was functionally and logically correct according to the flow created in the definition stage, we were able to take most of the existing branding assets of Banjo Robinson and apply them stylistically to the hi-fi version. This initial investment of effort really paid off and meant that the team could continue iterating quickly.
Here is a link to the final prototype:
The outcomes / final solution phase included:
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the client presentation
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the results
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future considerations
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client debrief
Presentation
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We had conducted a number of rehearsals together as a team so that we knew how to deliver our presentation in the most impactful way. During these sessions I'd concentrate not only on we had to say but also what the team were saying. This really helped shape our message.
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On presentation day, everyone was slightly nervous. After the meet and greet we jumped straight into presenting...which went splendidly!
Client Debrief
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I think all of our hard work really paid off at this point because the client was really impressed with our final delivery, considering how little time we had to deliver everything. The team took the opportunity to delve deeper into our research and the suggestions we wanted to make.
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It's now a case of 'watching this space', as the client are really keen to adopt some of our ideas, like the personalisation 'Cat Chat', into their live site.
Personal Learnings
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From the get-go, this project was an exciting endeavour to be a part of. This was down to the client, the brief and the team that I was going to be working with.
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As with any project or 'real-life' situation, the major factor is people. On this project it was a case of working out the team dynamics from the beginning so that we could work in the most efficient manner and delivering excellence. This paid off in the long run.
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From my previous experience in the industry, my stakeholder management skills helped build rapport between our team during meetings and workshops. Beyond that, in terms of process, I learnt that I was proficient in going through the entirety of the UX process (Double Diamond) with confidence.
My leadership skills were demonstrated at various points during this project. From the team dynamics stage to the debrief, I supported the team by understanding them as individuals and making sure they were set up for success. Although not always apparent to me, it was proven through the feedback and appreciation received from my team and beyond. In the past, I may have doubted myself in that regard but because I feel confident in my ability as a UX designer, these softer skills now surface naturally.
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I wish my team and my client the very best for their future endeavours.
