Sheridan Dental Care: A Local Business Website Case Study
Our second project as an Ironhack student. A new challenge. New learnings. This is how it rolls! Let’s start…
The challenge this time was to design a desktop website for a local business or professional. The focus was to analyze the website, organize the information in a clear way, and come up with a feature to implement it on the site.
Luckily, one of my team member’s mom is a dentist and her clinic has a website we were able to work on, we immediately jumped on-site audit and market research.
Market Research
Sheridan Dental Care is a small local dental office located in the city of Hollywood, Florida. Near the office, the business has more than eight direct competitors that we were able to find doing a simple Google search.
However, Sheridan Dental Care has no presence in Google Maps.
Out of those eight competitors, we picked four to conduct a more in-depth analysis to see how these dental offices were presenting themselves to the public, what services they offer, how robust their websites are, and what type of features they have.
Site Audit
To understand where Sheridan Dental Care’s website was compared to four of its competitors, we conducted a site audit of each one.
Except for the website of Dr. Adrian Paruas, all others were very robust, better structured, with more information, and online features than Sheridan’s.
Brand Comparison
To analyze how these other dental offices were presenting themselves to the public, we conducted a brand comparison analysis focusing on four main points: value proposition, target clientele, services offered, and brand perception.
Here we went to each website and their social media accounts to look at comments, general information, and a sense of their content.
We immediately learned that the two main target groups for these four dentist offices were people looking for general dentistry services and those interested in cosmetic dentistry, mostly smile design.
However, even though each office was offering more or less the same type of services, their value proposition was completely different. While one offered affordable dentistry services, the other was guaranteeing a good experience or the best cosmetic services.
Feature Comparison
Understanding the features of each website was key to know the opportunities we had in terms of what the competitors were doing that Sheridan wasn’t and which features were not implemented at all across all sites.
Some features you could find across the board, like a contact us form or an appointment request. Nonetheless, review features or an integrated map were only found on one website.
User & Stakeholder Interviews
As we were understanding the market, we also needed to know how users perceived the page, what they expected from it, what they liked, what they didn’t like, and some of their behaviors when it comes to dental services.
But the point of view of the user is not the only one we need to know. Understanding the stakeholders and their business goals is an important part of the process since the design needs to meet both parts.
After interviewing both the stakeholders and users, we noticed that while the stakeholders pointed out the lack of knowledge customers have regarding their insurance coverage, the users wanted to know what was covered by their insurance. Same pain point but from two different perspectives.
Overall, users wanted to be aware of prices and coverage while stakeholders were looking to not lose business due to cheaper services.
Empathy Map
Using all the data points from the interviews, we worked on the Empathy Map to put ourselves in the shoes of the potential user. All the different areas on the map were filled out with the information gathered from the users' interviews.
This is an important step to create your user persona as you want to understand the user as much as possible.
User Persona
As much of you know, Florida is the state where retired people move to, so it’s not strange that local businesses ' core clientele are people over 55 years old. A panorama Sheridan Dental Care knows well.
Now, let me introduce you to Conscious Clara, an older educated retired woman on a fixed income who wanted not just excellent dental care but also a price point that didn’t break the bank.
Clara needs to be aware of every dollar spent and do so wisely. That’s why some of Clara’s core needs are affordable dental work and the ability to compare prices.
User Journey Map
On this user journey map, we presented what could be a very common scenario among elderly people.
Conscious Clara woke up one day with tooth pain, tries home remedies but nothing seems to help. She looks for a dentist referral with a friend who gives her a name but no more information.
Her son helps her finding the dental office’s information online and get to their website. They couldn’t find prices or insurance information, nor finance options.
They finally call and get the appointment. After Clara getting her tooth problem solved she got shocked by the co-payment and how little her insurance covered.
Problem Statement & HMWs
The steps and methodologies we’ve gone through up until this point led us to define the Problem Statement. And, based on it, we identified three possible areas where we might help.
Lean UX Canvas
The Lean UX Canvas helped us to funnel all ideas to the right solution. Brainstorming following the canvas’s structure allowed us to be more time-efficient and kept us focused on the information we needed to concentrate on.
MOSCOW Method
As a team, we came up with a fairly long list of possible solutions for our problem. To help us prioritize them, we used the MOSCOW method.
All this process led us to determine that “the website must feature improved structure of information presented, cost transparency, and services offered.”
The Feature: Price Matching Tool
After analyzing the data gathered from the interviews, the design opportunities we identified along with the User Journey Map, and having them prioritized, we decided to move forward with the design of a Price Matching tool, a feature that would help users being aware of services pricing ahead of time while ensuring affordability.
Knowing the feature we wanted to design, we used User Stories to identify the tool’s must-haves based on what the user wanted to do or accomplish.
Information Architecture & User Flow
At this point, we needed to find a place for the Price Matching tool and organize the information in a way that was intuitive to the user.
In order to get user’s input for the site map, we conducted a Card Sorting Test, a method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture of a site. The results from this test helped us determine the main menu options and the information that would go under each one.
The results are reflected on Sheridan Dental Care's proposed site map.
As seen above, the Price Matching feature fell under the Financing tab.
What would be the Price Matching tool user flow? Let’s take a look at the following image.
From the homepage, the user will click on the Finance tab to see that in the dropdown menu is the Price Matching tool option. From there, the user will click on the feature and will be redirected to the Price Matching tool page where they will enter the information requested on the form, submit proof of a competitor’s quote, and hit submit.
Prototyping & Testing
At this point, the team put the creative hat on, and with pen and paper in hand we took on the task of creating the first concept sketches.
From the four ideas, we grabbed the best and came up with the first lo-fi wireframe version.
Feedback
We sent the lo-fi wireframe prototype to different people to get as much feedback as possible in a short period of time.
People’s observations can be summarized in the following:
- Switch the location of the login form with the Price Matching tool form.
- Make clear that creating an account is a requirement
- Add password confirmation field.
- Add a field asking the type of service they need a quote for.
The suggestions were put in place on the next phase of the project: the mid-fi wireframe version.
Mid-Fi Prototype
With the prototype ready and a happy path defined, we uploaded it to Maze and sent it out for testing.
Test Results
The whole team participated in the interviews of six people, each one assuming the role of interviewer, note-taker, and observant.
The results, well, see for yourself!
Interviews Results
- 80% of users were hesitant in providing personal contact information.
- 80% of users looked for Price Matching under the Services tab, not Finance.
- 100% of users felt being required to create an account was a deterrent.
Maze Test Results
You can have an idea of why such a low usability score as soon as you see these heat map samples. People clicked in places where they shouldn’t have.
A question to be asked is if part of the problem would lie on a poor test context and instructions? or was it the actual design?. Could’ve been both. This is something we couldn’t test further but for sure would’ve been the next step.
Learning & Conclusions
One thing we learned for sure is that people don’t want to provide personal contact information to avoid marketing calls and emails. As soon as they feel we’re invading their privacy, they want to withdraw from the process.
Simple stuff. People want simple stuff. Don’t overcomplicate the process.
Provide value early on. Users expect immediacy. Instant gratification. Especially if they’re trying to get important information within a short-time window.
We also noticed that early research didn’t align with mid-fi prototype results. What was told or suggested at the beginning was completely the opposite later on.
To conclude, the Price Matching tool was not a feature that was welcomed by the testees. It needs to be rethought. I would step back completely and start again with new interviews, a survey, another round of ideation, and see where the final users take us.
