Tuesday
Another shortened week due to being off work on Monday, attempted to clear the decks of "normal" work in the morning before heading to the afternoon Catalyst session.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.- David Bowie
During that session, our focus (particularly our Minimum Loveable Product (MLP)) changed somewhat from what it was just a week before. Originally, the thought was to introduce video tutorials for the website, which would show users how to complete certain sections. After working through our MLPs again today, I "borrowed" an idea from one of the other organisations in our cohort to instead focus on the home page of CABmoney.
Although the video tutorials are something we still want to add at a later date, the new homepage (or after a bit more refining later in the week, a "splash page") would be a more achievable target (ie easier to do!) and would give us instant feedback through Google Analytics.
Through A/B testing, we could create two new splash pages and test which was the most effective live on the actual website. This data could also be analysed against our current home page (already with years worth of analytics available) to see how a simplified approach would assist users get to the information they need quicker.
Also today, while talking about readability, the Flesch test was mentioned which would also be a good indicator on how effective changing our wording would be.
These two ideas combined would tie in well with some of the highest ranking ideas from our staff consultation, namely:
- Clearer, Simple Menus
- Move the Budget Calculator to Front and Centre
- Easy Read / More Visual Explanations
This revelation (and major change of focus) led to our Design Constraint to be as follows:
And that was only the first session on Tuesday!
The second session went into Service Blueprints, showing the flow through the service and how things connect. A bit tricky as some people will use different sections of our website, but the general flow is shown in our blueprint below.
Thursday
Today's session was how to communicate our Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) as a "zine". Having only a red marker pen, which bled through the paper onto my other notes and fingers the end product looked a little gory. If you want to get in a mess like this yourself, get an old leaky red marker pen and make your own zine.
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| Here's one I made earlier! |
Had this been for the full CABmoney website, we could have filled a full book with problems and solutions, but this seems much more manageable for the next few weeks (which is the point!)
The contents worked through the issues with the current home page that we've identified, and show the solutions that should be achievable for our prototypes. I cheated a little, by going over two pages for one of the images but with quite a small, focussed MLP there wasn't too much to say without it turning back into a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).
Friday
A bit of a catch up day for Catalyst Project work today. I had a good catch up with my line manager about the project now it's reached the mid-way point which was very positive.
The last couple of blog posts went up (including this one!) and managed to do a bit more work on some of the other aspects but still a bit of catching up to do on a few others.
