Torrey Utne

Driftwood Kayak

 

Driftwood Kayak Homepage

Role: UX Research | Strategy | UX Design

Tools: Sketch | Google Analytics | Google Forms | UsabilityHub | Excel | Squarespace

The owner of Driftwood Kayak Tours approached us seeking to improve the performance of his website. We evaluated the site, his customer data, and existing analytics then ran some tests to get to the heart of the problem. After implementing a two pointed plan of action, this season has seen an 82% increase in revenue for this small business.

 
 

"Dr. Avery" is a persona that represents Driftwood Kayak's main user group. This persona was produced by compiling data from customers going back three years.

 
 

Feature 1

Driftwood Kayak was initially concerned that, because they were seeing extremely low online sales and very few leads generated by the website, that their SEO needed improvement. After investigating this possibility, SEO tests and the analytics pointed to other causes. Their website was easily found with broad searches and website analytics showed steady traffic that was failing to convert.

I designed and ran "5 Second Usability Tests" as well as a moderated Usability test to assess the homepage's performance and to identify stumbling points in the user flow.

 

 
 
 
 

Usability Test

 

•Task 1 Find what services this company offers

•Task 2 Find in what months trips are available

•Task 3 Find the price of a three day trip for two people

•Task 4 Book a three day trip for two people in August

•Task 5 Find ratings and reviews of this company

 

The experiments highlighted some significant issues with the user's ability to identify what the company offers, where they offer it, and the professionalism of the website. The usability test also showed that users struggled to complete tasks such as completing an order or finding information necessary to make a decision.

 
 

Our suggestions for Driftwood Kayak were divided into two parts:

  1. Improve User Experience to improve conversions.
    1. Display the "Who", "What", and "Where" on the homepage
    2. Focus the CTA's 
    3. Utilize high quality photography to communicate professionalism
    4. Reduce the number of steps in the purchasing pathway (Users had a lot of difficulty knowing what step was next.)
    5. Reduce the number of product options presented from 14 to 6
  2. Use data-generated-persona for targeted advertisements on Facebook to increase site traffic after improving site usability.
 

The old site layout was missing critical information.

The new homepage layout.

 
 
 

Revenue Increase from 2017 to 2018

This graph shows site revenue and an 82% increase from January, 2017 to August, 2018.