Understanding the Goal
Starting with a broad objective, I researched the highest-performing pages for lead generation to identify improvement opportunities.
Our statistics showed that leads generated from the course pages had a significantly higher conversion rate than those from other site sections: nearly a 30% lead-to-enrolment rate, compared to 10–20% elsewhere. We then mapped the user flow to understand how visitors reached this key page.
Consequently, each lead generated on these pages was more engaged and highly likely to enrol, confirming that the course pages were the optimal area to begin our optimisation.
Project Team
As Head of UX, my role was to not only define the strategy but to build capability within the cross-functional project team (consisting of 1 UX Designer, 1 UX Researcher, 1 Frontend Developer, 2 Backend Developers, and 2 Content Specialists).
I personally mentored and guided the team through the complex UCD process. A key success was providing additional, targeted mentorship to the UX Designer, Researcher, and Frontend Developer on best-practice A/B testing methodologies and data-driven pattern generation. This focus not only delivered the project but upskilled the team to handle future optimisation projects independently, securing long-term performance.
Research &
Empathy
Gathering a deeper understanding of user behaviour and product interaction.
Gathering Quantitative and Qualitive Data
We gathered a range of quantitative and qualitative data to gain a clearer understanding of the user’s pain points on the course page.
Using Analytics, we could see that approximately 40% of our traffic was mobile, with over 90% of those users accessing the site on an iPhone.
Heatmaps allowed us to see what areas the user was focusing on and if they were getting to the relevant information on different devices.
Reviews, surveys, and scenario-based testing provided qualitative data on user perception of the pages.
Building Empathy
From user reviews, surveys, and scenario tests, we determined that users struggled with the extensive block of course content, and on mobile, the core content was difficult to locate as it was buried towards the bottom of the page.
Ideation
Creating ideas and concepts that could help resolve user pain points based on the collected data and feedback.
Generating Ideas
We began with a team review of our competitors’ course pages and other top e-commerce sites to gather inspiration. This allowed every team member to contribute different ideas for tackling the identified user pain points.
We then did a “How Might We” (HMW) brainstorming exercise to generate some ideas on how to solve the users pain points.
We then organised these notes into an affinity diagram and priority matrix to effectively prioritise immediate fixes versus ‘nice-to-have’ ideas. Furthermore, we voted on key concepts to help emphasise the most promising solutions.
Sketching Out Ideas
Everyone in the team started with ‘Crazy 8’ sketches to visualise how our ideas might look. These were then refined into a final sketch, complete with functional notes, which each team member presented to the rest of the team.
Once all the presentations were done each team member got to vote on the ideas and designs that they thought worked best.
Refining Our Designs
Because we wanted to make sure that we were hitting the mark with the design we built out a range of designs inside the design tool (Figma) which allowed us to share the designs with the wider team and receive further feedback before moving onto the prototyping stage.
We also needed to make sure the designs worked well across mobile and desktop within a responsive layout
Prototyping
Prototyping is the process of creating a mock-up of a product/process that you want to test and refine ideas on before delivering a final product/solution
Creating A Prototype
For this task, we required a high-fidelity prototype to ensure users perceived it as a real, live page during the various tests we planned to perform.
Once the designs were finalised, we built the page’s HTML and CSS and integrated it into the website CMS as a live, functioning asset. This integration was critical, as all generated data needed to be correctly passed to the CRM and tracked accurately.
Whoever generated a lead on this page would need to speak to a course advisor and might enrol on the course.
Testing
Testing is a validation of your ideas to see if they solve the pain points that your users were having
Scenario based testing
We began by running a range of scenario tests to ensure users easily understood the new page (versus the control) and could navigate it with ease. This allowed us to implement a range of quick design tweaks before proceeding with the A/B test.
A/B Testing
Once the prototype was complete, we initiated the A/B test, splitting traffic between two different pages: the control and the new version. The site did not have sufficient traffic to run multiple versions within the required timeframe. We also ran the test across several course pages to assess the new design’s performance on different user segments. In total, we had three concurrent tests running.
A/B Test Results
The A/B test was a significant success, achieving approximately 100% improved lead generation for each page tested. Furthermore, we tracked the generated revenue, which totalled an extra £75k from each enrolment during the test period.
Our process was designed for scalability, ensuring that the successful elements could be instantly reused. The final, high-converting design was immediately codified and adopted as the official template for all future course pages.
The final product delivered a clean, focused, mobile-first experience that addressed all identified user and commercial needs. Upon full deployment across the site, this single design solution generated an extra £500k per month in company revenue.
