TERRA FOUNDATION GRANT EXPERIENCE
Improving user journey and grants application experience on Terra Foundation's website
Terra Foundation for American Art supports organizations and individuals globally to expand portrayals of American art and promote collaborative practices through their grant programs, collections, and other initiatives.
Certain pages of their website have recently been redesigned as a part of an initiative to improve and optimize their site. To help our clients achieve their mission of identifying the user journey and improving their experience on the website, we have analyzed the user behavior and navigation using Google Analytics and Hotjar.
We have identified room for improvement in the content hierarchy, and CTA labels on grants pages and given the scope for the further usability study.
My Role: Researched and analyzed data; generated findings; consolidated the recommendations; crafted the presentation deck and visual summary
Client
Terra Foundation of American Art
Team
Anamika Menon, Kyle Oden, Sacchit Vartak, Mishi Sarda
Duration
Sept 2022 to Oct 2022
Tools
Google Analytics, Hotjar, Figma, Miro, Google Suite
What are we trying to discover?
The Terra Foundation supports visual arts projects that question and broadens the understanding of American art and provides grants and fellowship opportunities to organizations and individuals. They last updated and redesigned certain pages of the website in July 2022. They had not done an assessment of the user behavior and the performance of redesigned pages post-launch. Without knowing this, it is difficult to understand and improve the user's journey of applying for grants on the website.
OUR GUIDING RESEARCH QUESTIONS ON USER JOURNEY
What was the overall impact of the redesigned pages in helping users access/ consume content on the website?
How do new users approach the process of applying for grants and what do they find challenging to navigate through?
What are some of the most frequently performed tasks and how do users navigate around them?
Google Analytics and Hotjar to analyze the site
We started the project by looking through the data and the common trends on Google Analytics. The time frame ranges between May 26 to October 5, 2022, to help compare the data two months before and after the redesign. We heavily focused on metrics such as page views, bounce rate, exit rate, average time on the page, and navigation flows. Additionally, we used Hotjar to get more profound data on user behavior for around 30 days. The team observed user recordings, the number of clicks, moves, and how far users scroll in the most visited pages.
The pages that we observed are the grants and fellowships page, specific grants pages, art collection, and mission and vision page.
Results of the study
The analysis helped us understand that the website's overall user journey resembles the one that was intended by the client, with room for improvement. With the data we collected, we turned the insights three primary findings and recommendations.
THE OVERALL FINDINGS ARE:
KEY FINDING 1: LOW DISCOVERABILITY OF VITAL INFORMATION
HotJar analysis suggests that users primarily access information about the deadlines and the process of grant application on individual grant pages. This information also includes eligibility, how to apply, and contact us sections and is currently hidden in the accordions at the end of the page affecting it's discoverability.
Existing individual grant page and its heatmap taken from Hotjar
RECOMMENDATION: MOVE VITAL INFORMATION ABOVE THE FOLD
HotJar analysis suggests that users primarily access information about the deadlines and the process of grant application on individual grant pages. This information also includes eligibility, how to apply, and contact us sections and is currently hidden in the accordions at the end of the page affecting it's discoverability.
Existing individual grant page and the proposed recommendation highlighting the improvements
KEY FINDING 2: DIFFICULTY UNDERSTANDING THE GRANT APPLICATION PROCESS DUE TO LACK OF DEFINED STRUCTURE
While looking at the user recordings, we observed that most users going to grant pages generally tend to navigate back and forth between the pages and accordions in search of a clear call-to-action (CTA). The lack of clear CTA buttons causes them to miss essential resources & application milestones.
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We can infer that excessive content and lack of structure in the "How to Apply" section can overwhelm the users and adds to their cognitive load.
Accordion of the existing individual grant page
RECOMMENDATION: RESTRUCTURE CONTENT INTO EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND SECTIONS
To solve the problems associated with an overload of data and lack of clear CTA, we recommend structuring the application process into easily digestible steps that will make it easier for the users to understand and follow through with the process.
To test our recommendation, we proposed an A/B test plan to compare two variants of the Grants page.
Existing individual grant page and the proposed recommendation highlighting the improvements in "How to Apply" section
A/B TEST PLAN
Audience: New and Returning users
Goals: restructure the content on the grants application page, simplify the process and reduce the user's cognitive load.
Hypothesis: Structuring the grant application process into smaller, more understandable steps and adding clear CTA’s will result in improved discoverability of content and understanding of the process. We infer that this would help increase the number of grant applications.
Metrics to see the results of the test:
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Number of new grant applications
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Number of clicks on CTA’s
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Number of downloads on LOI
KEY FINDING 3: REDESIGN AFFECTED THE PERFORMANCE OF THE ART COLLECTION PAGE
While in our research, the Google Analytics data showed that redesign has proven to be effective for Grants and Fellowships and About pages, the Art collection page witnessed a downward trend. The metrics that we observed to analyze the data are page views, page value, average time on the page, and bounce rate.
Data of the pages post redesign
Based on the data, there is a significant change in some of the metrics after the redesign of the Art Collection page. We observed the changes between the designs through Wayback Machine which is a digital archive of webpages from different times.
Art collection page pre and post the redesign and its data post redesign
ALTHOUGH OTHER DATA SHOWED A DOWNFALL IN THE PAGE STANDING POST REDESIGN, THE PAGE VALUE INCREASED
The total Page Value for Art Collection increased by 235% after the redesign. The results reflect that the page value increased due to the completion and performance of goals set in Google Analytics.
The two major goals set by the client are:
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The user spends 5+ minutes on a page
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The user visits at least 5 pages/screens per session
RECOMMENDATION: FURTHER TESTING
The conflicting data where all other metrics need improvement but the page value for the Art collection page increased post redesign shows the requirement for further study as this information goes beyond the scope of web analytics. We recommend conducting a Usability Study to observe and evaluate the user behavior on the redesigned Art Collections page to know the reasons behind the same and to make improvements.
Areas to consider while researching can be:
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Challenges faced by the users in performing various tasks
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If the information on the page is structured appropriately for the users and the improvements to be made
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Completion of goals associated with the page
Recommendation for taking a usability test to learn more about the Art Collection Page. Image Source: Unsplash
Visual Summary to demonstrate the highlights
To sum-up our findings from Google Analytics and Hotjar, I worked with another team member to create a high-level visual summary that comprises the overall website trends, new v/s returning user trends, trends since the redesign, and the user flow.
Client Feedback and next steps
The team presented the insights, findings, and recommendations to some of the key stakeholders at the Terra Foundation of American Art. They greatly appreciated and were impressed by the data-driven analysis and suggestions. Towards the end of the meeting, they mentioned plans to implement our recommendations and design approach.
The team presented the insights, findings, and recommendations to some of the key stakeholders at the Terra Foundation of American Art. They greatly appreciated and were impressed by the data-driven analysis and suggestions. Towards the end of the meeting, they mentioned plans to implement our recommendations and design approach. They were also interested in going forward with usability testing to learn more about user behavior on the site.
We loved seeing the recommended pages and how we can implement them. Excellent work and analysis and great design!
- Terra Foundation Representatives
LESSONS LEARNED THROUGH THIS PROJECT
One limitation during working on this project was interpreting and infering conclusions through quantitative data. My team and I also addressed this through our third finding where the data gathered through google analytics lacks uncovering user motivations behind different actions.
NEXT STEPS
While we are happy with the results, we have more tasks to work on to be able to see the results of our recommendations. Moving forward, our team plans to implement the A/B test plan with Google Optimize soon to compare which version of the website works better to enhance the user's grant application experience.