PROTOTYPING
Prototyping for Feedback
Surfacing more options for customers leads to bigger sales
The Problem
Over the years, McGraw-Hill education’s custom textbook product, Create, had grown to include thousands of content units, and the original browsing interface had become inadequate. Customers had trouble seeing their options or finding what they were looking for. The situation was beginning to drag down sales.
The Solution
The answer was to upgrade to a robust search, one with an ecommerce-like interface that everyone would be familiar with, complete with filtering and sorting options. To get it right, a dynamic prototype would help iterate on the design and functionality.
Project at a glance
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I worked as a prototyper on a team with a designer and a product owner.
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I used a then state-of-the-art prototyping product called Axure
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The project unfolded over 6 weeks
Deep Dive
Prototyping is the anchor of every good design process, famously a key element of design thinking, but no less useful in a narrower context like this one. There is no approach more powerful for getting good feedback than showing something that works just enough to accurately suggest the idea to the participant. The trick is to prototype at the right fidelity, filling in the critical details and omitting those that would distract.
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For this project, we decided that a prototype needed to be higher fidelity, in terms of content. That is, we wanted to be able to simulate search results with enough accuracy so as not to confuse the participant, or having to explain the discrepancy away. We chose Axure as our prototyping tool.
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Working with the designer on the UX, I assembled a wireframe-like prototype that included the initial home page, with the search bar and some simulated predictive functionality, and a search results page. We connected the results page prototype to a dataset with enough data for the testing. I coded it so parameters passed from the search page to the results page for the display.
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Once the prototype was refined to the team's satisfaction, I arranged for user tests. We recruited instructors for remote sessions, in which we gave them scenarios and asked them to use the prototype and then give us feedback using the think-aloud protocol.
The user tests confirmed our basic design direction, with a heavy focus on the search box on the home page, as well as the ecommerce-like sorting and filtering features on the results page. We identified multiple opportunities for copy changes and interface tweaks, which were implemented in the final product.
The Outcome
Once the team released the search, the site saw an immediate increase in use. Instructors found they had a much easier time exploring their options and discovering new content they used. Moreover, the time needed to create their customized books dropped by about 75%, an improvement that also affected sales team members who built books on behalf of instructors, freeing them up to provide better service to customers.
Contact me if you are looking for more detail. I can provide it privately.