PIER Online Redesign
PIER Online is a platform for training and connecting education agents and providers around the world. It aims to become a focal point for the global community of international agents and institutions by providing unique content and technology tools that increase their knowledge, empower their businesses and build and strengthen the relationships between them.
The website needed to be restructured and redesigned to achieve the following outcomes:
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Refine the scope of pieronline.org to represent PIER’s product range.
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Effectively convey the corporate messaging and vision
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Support and promote the ongoing activities of both PIER and IES’ in technology and education
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Establish a modern design that connects and drives PIER’s brand through all its products.
Project Goals
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A beautiful and simple design (modern, but established)
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Make the site more user-friendly
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Cut out irrelevant sections and make important sections more easily accessible
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Communicate the organisation's achievements better
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20% increase in page views
My Role
UX Design / UI Design
Reseach Methods
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Zendesk
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User interviews
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Journey Maps
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Prototype Testing
1. Inefficient website
I began reviewing past Zendesk requests and reaching out to users who had issues in finding the content they needed. I discovered that the education agents and providers were using different resources and courses, however the product pages where a jumble of everything PIER had to offer with no clear target. Users wanted an easy way to navigate around the website, seeing content that was relevant to them.
2. Lack of trust
PIER was having trouble expressing it's dominating position in the industry because it failed to communicate the vast size of its network. Users had to dig through the website before they stumbled upon information of how many agencies and providers were already using PIER's services. This lack of clear value proposition was leaving an impression on users that the company was much smaller and not that well established in the education industry.
3. Missed opportunities
Many education agents were coming to PIER from external websites advertising the Agent Finder app. This was PIER's database app that helped education providers locate agents in their target market. This app was located on a different PIER website, transferring users away from PIER Online, essentially losing users and making it harder for them to access the other products actually available on the main website.
4. Poorly designer shopping cart
Users also complained about the poor usability of the existing shopping cart. The cart didn't allow users to purchase multiple products at once and made them check out each one individually. It also made it difficult for users to go back to the main website once they were done with purchasing.
Results
1. Clear pathways for education agents, and providers
To fix the issues of users being shown large volumes of information irrelevant to them, I designed a landing page where they could select their own path as either an Agent or Provider. The separate journeys now allowed for targeted content and courses, as well as any future features that would be redundant to the other target market. Prototype testing revealed that users now found it easier to navigate the website, and could locate the right products faster.
2. Promoted the Agent Finder app to increase traffic and page views
The Agent Finder app was an essential offering that PIER was underutilising. I found a solution with the development team to make it more accessible. By mirroring the app onto a new internal webpage, and promoting it across the website, the apps user engagement grew by 30%. By also keeping it on its original website, we ensured that there would be no loss of traffic or broken backlinks.
3. Built credibility with new users
To help build credibility and social proof, I made sure that PIER's many distinguished partners and achievements were much easier to see by displaying them on the home pages. This put users minds at ease and they reported they were more likely to purchase PIER's products.
4. Easier purchasing
Due to how payments were affected by other external factors, a full redesign of the cart was decided to be outside the scope for this project. However, I focused on making it more user friends by adding multi-product purchasing and adding a redirect button to the final screen so they could go back to PIER Online.
