OVERVIEW

Context

I was hired by Kira Street Designs to do user research for a client’s website. This client was a therapist based in Texas who provided mental health services to women, minorities, LGBTQ+ and the neurodiverse population – specifically those suffering from anxiety, ADHD and dyslexia. The client wanted the site to be warm and inviting, but the site that they using wasn’t helping them achieve these goals.

Goal

We wanted to figure out how people related to therapy and how they went about seeking it out. Because of that, the goals of this project were to:

• See how people looked for therapy.
• Understand the effects that connecting with a good or bad therapist can have on people and their perception of therapy.
• Learn how people dealt with neurodiversity.

Role

I was the main UX Researcher for this project. I was responsible for collecting the quantitative and qualitative data that the Product and Branding teams would use in their designs. I also created the surveys and set up the one-on-one interviews that created the basis for the user personas, journey maps and empathy maps. Lastly, I consolidated all my research into a presentation that I presented to the client.

RESEARCH PROCESS The Steps

01 Timeline

In total, the project took two weeks to complete. The process followed a specific method, but, naturally, some steps needed to be revisited to gain a more holistic view of the situation.

02 Research Hypothesis

At the beginning of the research stage, there were five hypotheses that were created to be tested. This was based on the research that was found in professional articles about the client’s target audience:

• The current website is too busy and hard to read for neurodiverse and non-neurodiverse users.
• Especially for people who are dyslexic, a lot of the most important text on the site is hard to read.
• The current site seems disjointed. This can disorient people with ADHD.