Powershop
Redesigning the sign-up experience
TIMELINE
Aug - Sep 2021 (6 weeks)
PLATFORM
Website
MY ROLE
UX researcher, Product Designer
TOOLS
Miro, Figma, Ottor, Zoom, Pen, Paper
Overview
Powershop is an energy retailer that provides 100% carbon offset energy plans to homes and businesses across Australia. Collaborating within a team of four, we redesigned the web sign-up experience allowing new customers to switch to Powershop effortlessly.
Project objectives
Improve the sign-up conversion rate and online sales
Ensure the signup experience is as frictionless as possible
Create an experience that was modern with users in mind
My role
I led the design of this project from end to end. I was responsible for conducting research, wireframing, prototyping and testing.
The design process
We followed the human-centred design process to investigate how people interacted with the sign up form and whether we could improve the experience based on their preferences. Letting user research be our guide, we brainstormed and designed multiple solutions. We then tested our ideas via usability tests and developed a high-fidelity interactive prototype based on our findings.
The problem
Environmentally conscious energy consumers who have decided to purchase a plan with Powershop are failing to convert when presented with the sign-up and checkout experience.
Hypothesis
What we thought would happen...
New users were not completing the sign-up because it was outdated, clunky and hard to navigate. We hypothesised that if we could make the sign up seamless by adding better digital experiences, more people would have less of a hard time completing the sign-up.
Research and discovery
User interviews
We spoke to eight people who were homeowners and renters, and have signed up for an energy plan or were interested in green energy.
Usability tests
We observed users getting a quote and signing up on Powershop’s and a competitor’s website to uncover pain points and expectations.
Competitor analysis
We analysed direct and indirect competitors to understand what a good sign up experience looks like and what could be improved.
Key finding and insights
We kicked off our research together by interviewing and observing eight users complete Powershop and a competitor’s sign up form. Following our interviews, we sorted and grouped our data into themes on an affinity map. We found that price and ease of sign up were the key motivators for users. Countless users reported that some parts of the experience were confusing as they didn't understand what was being asked of them. Listed below are the key insights we discovered.
The sign-up form is outdated
It has not gone through a redesign for 6 years. The form's functionality and design felt outdated, and some users lost confidence when signing up.
Industry terms are confusing
Users found industry terms confusing and parts of the sign up wordy, which made them skip over sections and not fully understand what was being asked of them.
Speed of completion
Users liked the progress bar throughout the sign-up but felt the number of steps was too long.
The existing quote experience can be improved
Several users reported that price is their biggest motivator. We felt it was equally important to design the quote page so they enjoy a better experience from the start to sign-up.
Competitor analysis
Using Miro as a remote collaboration tool, we also gathered inspiration of how other forward-thinking brands craft their sign up experience and shared what we like about them, what can be improved and how we can move forward with our design solution.
We learnt that:
Momentum Energy and AGL are the two direct competitors we researched. They utilise modern UI designs, simple language, and appropriate system feedback and error prevention to reduce issues before they come up.
Netflix and Goodbye Good Boy are non-energy retailers but offered interesting sign-up experiences.
Powershop stands out from the rest because of its ability to save the users progress and its strong social impact.
Personas
Who are we designing for?
Our research provided us with enough information to build our personas. The personas helped us further empathise with their needs, frustrations and motivations. We focused on homeowners, renters who have signed up for an energy plan or were interested in green energy.
User journey map
What followed was our efforts to map the existing user journey to identify other pain points and areas of opportunities of our persona.
Pain points
The feeling of confusion with information and technical terms
“Nothing is standing out, you don’t know what they are trying to get you to do, it’s just a mumble of text in my face“
The feeling of uncertainty with the brand
“I’d like to see customer testimonials that they deliver on the service they are saying“
The feeling of frustration with the time of completion
“It looks like the form will be time-consuming”
Opportunities
Simplify the steps and language to guide users through to the action required
Utilise testimonials and social proofs throughout the sign-up experience to reinforce the value/service
Ideation
How might we make the Powershop signup experience quick and intuitive for users?
Based on our research most people already spend hours researching the competitive rates and need to feel confident in their decision before they even consider signing up. This sparked the question, how might we make the Powershop signup experience quick and intuitive for users. Next, we ran a brainwriting workshop and focused on quick and high-value solutions.
Defining MVP
From our ideation session, the features were listed and mapped based on complexity, potential business and user efficiency values. Below are the highest impact features that we expected to include in the product design.
Get a quote
It was necessary to use simple language to provide transparency on the product and help them understand what they are purchasing.
Sign up
Reducing tasks to 1-2 questions per screen helps the user focus and understand smaller bits of information easier, and move through sign-up quicker.
Progress bar
The vertical progress bar was repositioned to the top of the screen, which helps users better recognise where they are in the process.
Review & submit an order
Providing a familiar online shopping experience allows users to feel like they have completed a purchase compared to purely signing up.
Prototyping
Focusing on high impact features allowed us to create a story that could be split into a few major user scenarios: getting a quote, signing up, creating an account, and confirming the order. The below show major steps taken in the prototyping to bring our ideas to life:
User flow
We started by focusing on a specific user flow that would allow us to include the highest impact features.
Sketches
Rapid creation of key screens and features.
Lo-fi wireframes
Moving our sketches into digital mock ups and closer to life.
Usability testing revealed positive feedback
We tested the prototype on five users with the same tasks and our new designs.
All users were able to complete the quote and sign-up process without any issues. Users found the design to be more modern, quicker and less complicated to complete compared to the previous signup.
What users are saying…
“Wow, this looks heaps cleaner! The quote makes more sense now that I know what info is actually being used to get that number”
“This one feels a lot more straightforward. Love the generating quote page. Looks more modern and new, compared to the previous one”
“I felt like the form took less time to complete. It looks less complicated compared to the first version which I was asked many questions at once”
Final prototype
Our final product featured the quote CTA on the homepage, a simple sign up experience, that help the user focuses on one question at a time through the experience, as well as an order confirmation page.
We set out to do a lot at the beginning of the project, and I felt like we had accomplished a lot more than we thought we would get done design-wise.
Key learnings and takeaways
During this project, I was able to explore the user’s needs, align them with the business goals and use that information to design an experience that would benefit both. Here is what I learned from working on the project:
Connecting the dots
Initially, I thought we would focus solely on improving the sign-up process. However, I quickly realised during our research that it was equally important to understand the behaviours and motivations of users when purchasing energy plans because this influenced the decision to begin the sign-up experience.
Team collaboration
Working in a team is rewarding but also has its challenges. We decided to divide and design parts of the user experience. However, it meant there was rework at the end. Looking back, I would encourage setting up design components on Figma and scheduling more design critique meetings to ensure consistent designs throughout prototyping.