Unite Students Website
Unite Students, the leading student accommodation provider in the UK, revamped their website with my role encompassing end-to-end design, increasing number of bookings and decreasing drop off in the flow.
Team: 3x Product Designers, 1x Product Owner, 9x Engineers · 2018
TL; DR - How I contributed
01. Implemented and expanded upon the new brand guidelines throughout the website redesign project at Unite Students.
02. Streamlined the booking process, reducing clicks from 9 to 6, enhancing user experience.
03. Conducted usability testing to ensure the new design met user needs and preferences effectively.
Outcome: +35% customers entering the booking flow. +97% short term bookings
Overview
Unite Students is the leading of student accommodation provider in the UK. The business is embarking upon a large digital transformation project, starting from their website redesign.
Particular attention was given to the redesign of the booking process, from search and information gathering to room selection. The user experience redesign aimed at reducing the cognitive load and frustration of customers, increasing the clarity around available options; to do so, the menu and Information Architecture have been redesigned to help customers with the content comprehension.
The team successfully redesigned the experience to book a room with Unite by reducing the necessary clicks from a maximum of 9 to a maximum of 6. The outcome was a frictionless user experience for our customers and a conversion increase for the business.
Discovery
Unite Students collaborated with Natural Interaction, a Bristol-based UX agency, for a comprehensive research project to interrogate our customers’ booking experience. 1423 students took part to the research project, articulated in observed user sessions and video interviews.
The research phase identified pain points in the past user experience and gave invaluable insight on our customer base needs.
👉 Customers resent paying for time when they are not in the accommodation, e.g. over the summer.
👉 Most students expect some kind of saving for booking a longer tenancy.
👉 Full year/academic year are a comfortable starting point for UK students.
👉 Date flexibility more welcomed by price sensitive, international and post grad students.
👉 6th formers expect Universities will place them into halls or aid search and see them as the authority.
👉 International students want flexibility at the end of the booking.
Design
Unite navigation was poor, while the site itself fell short against the User Experience the business wanted to offer - an issue acutely apparent in the front-end look and feel. Last time Unite Students went through a brand redesign phase, back in 2015, the website and mobile app inherited the style that was designed for their properties - a style suitable for print and interior design, but that could be a poor choice for a digital product. It was time for a new, modern, slick brand identity.
The UX team successfully redesigned the experience to book a room with Unite by reducing the necessary clicks from a maximum of 9 to a maximum of 6, improving the existing flow by dismissing unnecessary steps.
