Define the Strategy & Scope for RAS Website Optimisation

Identify opportunities and define the scope for improvement

Royal Art Society of New South Wales

Strategy - Scope

Sector

Non-profit, Sydney based art school and art gallery

Challenge

The Royal Art Society (RAS) of NSW is one of the most established art schools in Sydney, but its website design is outdated and its user experience falls short of expectations compared to its competitors. A visual and interaction overhaul is required so that it can maintain a competitive advantage over its competitors in the years to come. This is a personal project.

My Role

User Research, Analysis, Strategise, Scope Definition

Create the Strategy and Scope for the Optimisation of the RAS Website

Strategy

Understand key issues
Empathise with users
Identify opportunities
Competitor analysis

Scope

Features
Website Optimisation Roadmap

The RAS Website Needs an Overhaul to Keep Up With its Competitors

Key issues identified are:

Website has outdated look and feel
Homepage is uninspiring, image not befitting an art school/art gallery
Does not offer online enrolment nor payment
On the mobile:
- the menu does not meet web content accessibility guidelines, e.g., the fonts are too small
- there's overall poor navigation, e.g., class details in separate documents

Empathise with Users

To ensure that the different groups of students' pain points, needs and motivations are addressed, I created 2 personas - casual students and regular students. These personas are based on both personal experience and the experiences of other students I spoke with. This information is used to inform the Customer Journey.

Identify Opportunities to Optimise the User Experience

I mapped out a User Journey Map to delve deeper into user's pain points and identify opportunities for improvement. Through this exercise, further issues were identified:

Users had difficulty comparing Workshop information as they were on separate documents
Workshop information is removed from website once the workshop is fully booked which confuses users into thinking that the workshop has been cancelled
The class description and materials required are in separate documents accessed via the menu

What Can RAS Learn from Its Competitors

To find out how the RAS website compares to its competitors, I conducted a competitor analysis. I focused on other art schools and a community centre that offers art courses.

In the analysis, I included the pros and cons of applicable usability heuristic adoptions and a list of features that the top competitors had but RAS was missing.

RAS Website Optimisation Roadmap

I recommend a 'mobile first' strategy for optimising the RAS website and to implement the updates in 5 different phases per the roadmap as their website is maintained by 1 person.