Got A Ukulele — Megan Ferry

Got A Ukulele Website Redesign

Role: Researcher, Interviewer, UX designer, UI designer
Team: Andre Coleman, Megan Ferry
Year: 2024 (2 week project)

Challenge

Gotaukulele.com is the #1 most shared resource of quality reviews for people looking to purchase a ukulele and access ukulele resources. We have observed the review content is not able to be filtered, making it difficult for users to accomplish finding an instrument within their search criteria.

Proposed Solution

Our solution is to organize the information into easy to navigate categories, which allows users to intuitively locate specifically filtered reviews and resources.

Research

First Impressions

17 individual navigation links
Confusing hierarchy of content
No way to filter multiple search constraints

User Survey

Interview Plan

Goals

To discern how users search for useful information about ukuleles
To determine what kind of user is browsing reviews
To determine what links gotaukulele.com users are searching for in the navigation
To determine how ukulele players categorize the different instruments

Questions

Why do users visit gotaukulele.com?
How do users search for specific reviews on the website?
What categories of ukuleles are users searching for?
What frustrations do users have trying to find the right instrument for themselves?

User Testing Insights

Hypothesis

Redesigning the User Interface of gotaukulele.com will help newcomers and enthusiasts better access useful information, because it will be easier for them to navigate, search, and filter for reviews that apply to their interests.

Ideation

Indirect Competitor Analysis

Using inspiration from successful specialty review sites (mattresses, cameras, electric bikes, etc.) informed the flow I created to allow the user to filter criteria based on what users considered important when purchasing an instrument online.

User Flow

Priority Matrix

Sorting priorities reveled what was most important:

Clear labeling & organization to quickly identify

Ability to visually scan content without being overwhelmed

Organizing in a way that feels familiar to other review sites

Simplify navigation

Site Mapping

Card sorting the site map validated the main focus of the top navigation bar should be the reviews.

Wireframing & Prototyping

These are the initial wireframes for the flow of a user browsing reviews by category.

(Full Figma files can be provided upon request)

Select Brand

During usability tests, users found the new flow to be intuitive with a high percentage of task completion of finding an instrument review within a specific budget. However; we learned that adding a “return to top” button would help alleviate the pain point of scrolling longer reviews, and a few participants mentioned an option to “view all” would also be useful to add to our categories.

Updated Primary Navigation

Style Tile

Hero Space

High Fidelity Prototype

I adjusted the wireframe based on those usability tests and applied the style guide for the final prototype.