Protect Our Winters UK
POW Pledge - UX Case Study
CLIENT
Protect Our Winters UK
PROJECT
UX Research / UX Design
PROJECT YEAR
2021
Overview
Protect Our Winters UK (POW) is a charity committed to reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, their ultimate goal being to protect outdoor winter sports from the effects of climate change. For this reason they developed a climate pledge for UK companies, attempting to make it easier for companies to understand and reduce their carbon footprint.
For this pledge to be effective in reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, POW wanted as many companies to sign up to the pledge as possible. However, this was not happening and more importantly they found that although companies were signing up, many pledges remained incomplete.
To understand why this was, POW took on an agile team of UX researchers and designers to re-imagine the POW Pledge.....
For this pledge to be effective in reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, POW wanted as many companies to sign up to the pledge as possible. However, this was not happening and more importantly they found that although companies were signing up, many pledges remained incomplete.
To understand why this was, POW took on an agile team of UX researchers and designers to re-imagine the POW Pledge.....
PROTECT OUR WINTERS UK
Presents
11
UXers
1,000
Hours
6
Weeks
"The Pow Pledge"
Product Owner
DOMINIC WINTER
Design Thinking
DAVID BROOKS
Experience Design Lead
MICHAEL HAIGNEY
Research
BEATRIZ HERNANDEZ
DIMITRA ZAFEIRI
MAGDA NOWACKA
Ideation
DREW EWAN
FREYA HIRSHMAN
IAIN MACDONALD
Post Pledge Journey
HELENA HEWITT
JOANNA HAGAN
MARC FAIRBAIRN
Technical Lead
PIERS SAYE
Trustees
AL CONROY
LAUREN MACCALLUM
Project Goals
The goals set out for the UX team by POW were simple:
1. Understand why companies were not completing the pledge
2. Use this information to suggest improvements to the pledge process
Challenges
Incomplete pledges
POW had noticed that although companies were signing up, many pledges were remaining incomplete after several months. We wanted to try to understand why that might be in order to come up with the most appropriate solutions.
Remote UX team
A big challenge for us all was getting to know one another in a short space of time, as well as working entirely remotely. To help with this, the project aimed to be as open and transparent as possible, with everyone welcome at every meeting.
Learning new tools
Although we came into the project with a good amount of knowledge and existing skillsets, we were required to pick up several new pieces of software, including Jira (project management), Mural (online collaboration), and Slack (comms).
Accessibility
We wanted to ensure that we made the new site accessible to as many users as possible. Whilst we knew accessibility was a key consideration, we still had a lot to learn. To help with this, we carried out an accessibilty audit of the current site.
Selling our ideas
We all came into POW with no existing biases about the current website or pledge journey. Although this enabled us to be more imaginative in our approach, we also had to be mindful of how best to sell our ideas to the stakeholders.
Time constraints
Managing our time was a major challenge. With a deadline set just six weeks from our initial onboarding, we had to get to know each others' strengths, learn new skills, carry out research, as well as design and build a working prototype.
Preparation
1. Assemble the team
Before work could start, Michael Haigney and David Brooks were tasked with forming the UX team. Restraints for the UX team were:
- That all of the team members needed to be volunteers
- This meant the team would have varied availability
- The team had to be 100% remote due to COVID and geographic restrictions
- They needed to deliver in six weeks
2. Assess POW goals
Once the UX team was assembled they first assessed the goals set out by POW. Based on these goals we developed questions for ourselves in order to guide our research:
- Who are the users?
- Is it usable?
- Is it accessible?
3. Get aquainted with POW
- Accessibility evaluation whilst being onboarded to gauge the accessibility of the pledge
- Meeting with the Project Manager to understand the pledge journey and the users from the stakeholders perspective
- Brief personas to get an initial idea of the users
- CJMs to understand the pledge journey and empathise with the users
4. Initial research
- Heuristic evaluation to assess the usability of the pledge
- Usability testing of the current pledge to understand and prioritise key usability issues
- User interviews to gain insight into the users and assess the appropriateness of the pledge for their needs
Process
The process was pretty fluid, and there was some overlap in roles and activities. But broadly speaking the team carried out the following in just six weeks: performed an accessibility audit; carried out research; did some ideation; built a design system; and created a prototype. At the end of March they pitched their ideas to the POW Trustees.
1. Looking at Accessibility
Dimitra
Drew
Freya
Helena
Iain
Jo
Marc
ACCESSIBILITY TOOLKIT
1. Accessibility Insights for Web
2. WAVE
3. Headings Map
4. Web Developer
2. WAVE
3. Headings Map
4. Web Developer
At the start of the project, when the idea of a working prototype of something new was just a glint in our collective eye, we carried out an accessibility audit of the current POW UK website.
Although many of us were familiar with accessibility, there were big gaps in our knowledge. Using the tools listed in the toolkit we were able to learn more about accessibility and discover areas in which the current website could be improved.
A site with numerous accessibility issues would normally be a bad thing, but in our case it had the benefit of making a great training ground to learn more about accessibility.
Although many of us were familiar with accessibility, there were big gaps in our knowledge. Using the tools listed in the toolkit we were able to learn more about accessibility and discover areas in which the current website could be improved.
A site with numerous accessibility issues would normally be a bad thing, but in our case it had the benefit of making a great training ground to learn more about accessibility.
What did we learn?
- WCAG standards and ratings
- The importance of good HTML structure for assistive technologies
- Concepts of ARIA tags, regions, landmarks and roles
- How to identify website accessibility issues
What issues did we discover?
- Headings structures were muddled and inconsistent
- Some images were missing alt text
- Much of the text had insufficient contrast to meet WCAG criteria
- Embedded forms on donation page did not work well with assistive technology
- Users could not navigate some areas with keyboard or menu bar
2. Conducting Research
Beatriz
Dimitra
Drew
Freya
Iain
Jo
Magda
RESEARCH TOOLKIT
1. Zoom
2. Otter AI
3. Google Analytics
4. Mural
5. Notion
2. Otter AI
3. Google Analytics
4. Mural
5. Notion
To help POW start understanding why pledge supporters are not growing, it was necessary to explore the current state of the registration and pledge experience to then identify ways to improve the experience to help POW achieve its objectives by supporting users in achieving their goals.
The team decided to start by creating proto personas to get a feel for POW's target SME audience, and to chart their progress through the pledge on a customer journey map. This helped them to understand the peaks might experience and also identify friction points in the registration and pledge making journey.
We discovered there are several negative peaks - that can be prevented - which discourage users from completing the pledge.
The team decided to start by creating proto personas to get a feel for POW's target SME audience, and to chart their progress through the pledge on a customer journey map. This helped them to understand the peaks might experience and also identify friction points in the registration and pledge making journey.
We discovered there are several negative peaks - that can be prevented - which discourage users from completing the pledge.
Proto Persona
A proto-persona was created to align the team's existing assumptions of who the users were and to turn them from implicit to explicit assumptions. This worked as a gateway to research to validate the hypothesis made about the users. The proto-personas helped us to address key questions and assumptions during user interviews and usability testing.
Proto Persona
Customer Journey Map
Mapping the customer journey was necessary to understand the current experience of SME users who interact with the POW Pledge. After exploring the pledge journey and gathering existing knowledge within the organisation, the team developed a number of hypotheses and tested some of them further through user interviews and usability tests.
Customer Journey Map
Heuristic Evaluation
This evaluation was performed because it was a quick and cost-effective way of identifying ways of enhancing the usability of the pages in the Registration & Pledge journey while the team was negotiating access to users to conduct usability testing. The results showed that the top issue on the pages evaluated had to do with consistency and standards.
3. Thinking about Ideation
Section coming soon...
4. Designing a System
Section coming soon...
5. Building a Prototype
Section coming soon...
But in the meantime, check out the finished prototype by clicking the link below:
POW Pledge Prototype >6. Pitching our ideas
Section coming soon...
Meet the Team
Design Thinking and Experience Design Leads
Michael Haigney
LinkedIn Profile
Michael designed all aspects of the pledge project including the recruitment, onboarding and setup of volunteers into the pledge team. He placed a focus on empowering and supporting the volunteers to become a self managed team, which resulted in outputs that exceeded POW stakeholders' expectations, while also ensuring that the volunteers felt they were getting the experience they desired and enjoyed the journey despite the challenges and ambitious milestones.
Supported the team directly on interviews, observations, access to metrics including Google and Hotjar, and in presenting to senior stakeholders. Helped review and participated in accessibility audit, community development, information architecture, content & copy review and amendments.
Supported the team directly on interviews, observations, access to metrics including Google and Hotjar, and in presenting to senior stakeholders. Helped review and participated in accessibility audit, community development, information architecture, content & copy review and amendments.
David Brooks
LinkedIn Profile
David joined POW originally to help do a quick desk review of the POW pledge but knew it needed a lot more work. He loved the idea of supporting and empowering a team to do a more thorough review of the pledge, so supported Michael in helping to set it up.
He ran training sessions with the team to help upskill the team in areas they were unfamiliar with like analytics tools and accessibility. He provided assistance where needed to the design teams to help them work out what direction they should take and deliver their final presentations.
He ran training sessions with the team to help upskill the team in areas they were unfamiliar with like analytics tools and accessibility. He provided assistance where needed to the design teams to help them work out what direction they should take and deliver their final presentations.
Research
Beatriz Hernandez
LinkedIn Profile
Beatriz joined the project half way into a sprint and quickly embedded herself into the team. She conducted and analysed an interview and usability test session and participated as one of the heuristics evaluators to then synthesise the findings with the rest of the UX research team.
Beatriz really enjoyed presenting insights to the trustees and using her background in communications and marketing to build part of the presentation.
Beatriz really enjoyed presenting insights to the trustees and using her background in communications and marketing to build part of the presentation.
Dimitra Zafeiri
LinkedIn Profile
Dimitra worked on the research front for POW, as she is the person to turn to when you want to understand your users. She facilitated workshops where she instructed her colleagues on how to approach research and demonstrated its value.
She introduced them to new methodologies and built the research strategy to address the organisation’s problems. She was involved in all the research activities, and her efforts culminated with the final presentation to the trustees. She also worked on accessibility which she found super rewarding as the team worked towards advocating for a marginalized population.
She introduced them to new methodologies and built the research strategy to address the organisation’s problems. She was involved in all the research activities, and her efforts culminated with the final presentation to the trustees. She also worked on accessibility which she found super rewarding as the team worked towards advocating for a marginalized population.
Magda Nowacka
LinkedIn Profile
Magda was responsible for both the research and design phases. She was the last one to join the team but was able to proactively and quickly make sense of the complex issues behind the project.
From the beginning she demonstrated a willingness to commit to her work and to invest time, talent, and best efforts in accomplishing organisational goals. She was involved in desk research, heuristic analysis, usability testing, ideation phase, wireframing and presenting to stakeholders.
From the beginning she demonstrated a willingness to commit to her work and to invest time, talent, and best efforts in accomplishing organisational goals. She was involved in desk research, heuristic analysis, usability testing, ideation phase, wireframing and presenting to stakeholders.
Ideation
Drew Ewan
LinkedIn Profile
Drew was one of the first team members and helped set up the structure of the project. He worked with the teams on accessibility, UX research, presenting to stakeholders, ideation and prototyping.
With a focus on ease of use he aided in simplifying the processes involved in the pledge. As an advocate for storytelling he employed innovative techniques to create a more compelling narrative for the pledge. What started life as simple outline became the Climate Range concept which was a central component of the final prototype.
With a focus on ease of use he aided in simplifying the processes involved in the pledge. As an advocate for storytelling he employed innovative techniques to create a more compelling narrative for the pledge. What started life as simple outline became the Climate Range concept which was a central component of the final prototype.
Freya Hirshman
LinkedIn Profile
Freya was a very active member of the team, becoming heavily involved in many aspects of the project. She worked with the teams on accessibility, customer journey mapping, heuristic evaluation, user recruitment, user interviews and usability testing, presenting to stakeholders, ideation, content & copy review, prototyping and the development of a design system.
She employed workshopping tactics and skills to lead productive meetings and happily acted as a source of information for her team members. Enabling them to jump into the work when they had time.
She employed workshopping tactics and skills to lead productive meetings and happily acted as a source of information for her team members. Enabling them to jump into the work when they had time.
Iain MacDonald
LinkedIn Profile
Iain came to the project at the start with a background in web design, but was looking to gain more experience in user centred approaches to design. As such he was keen to learn more about the research side of UX as well as accessibility, especially in an agile collaborative team environment.
He participated in an accessibility audit, usability testing, and a heuristic evaluation as well as presenting to stakeholders. He was also heavily involved at the ideation stage, in the creation of a design system and working prototype that was built as a reimagining of the POW pledge.
He participated in an accessibility audit, usability testing, and a heuristic evaluation as well as presenting to stakeholders. He was also heavily involved at the ideation stage, in the creation of a design system and working prototype that was built as a reimagining of the POW pledge.
Post Pledge Journey
Helena Hewitt
LinkedIn Profile
Helena joined the team from the start of the web development project. Initially, she helped in the recruitment of user testers and quickly went on to develop UX Ideation for the Post Pledge Journey, using a variety of valuable UX workshopping techniques. Helena also took part in the accessibility audit and makes it one of her priorities to design accessible first.
After employing ideation, Helena and the team moved onto the design phase which she is excited to further develop during phase 2. Helena played a vital part in presenting the team's work to our stakeholders and was a key asset to the team's ability to problem-solve.
After employing ideation, Helena and the team moved onto the design phase which she is excited to further develop during phase 2. Helena played a vital part in presenting the team's work to our stakeholders and was a key asset to the team's ability to problem-solve.
Joanna Hagan
LinkedIn Profile
Jo initially worked with the teams on accessibility and customer journey mapping. She moved onto the Post Pledge Journey and practiced Design Thinking to connect the dots for users.
She used UX workshopping techniques to ideate, sketch, wireframe and prototype user support functions and presented the new features to stakeholders.
She used UX workshopping techniques to ideate, sketch, wireframe and prototype user support functions and presented the new features to stakeholders.
Marc Fairbairn
LinkedIn Profile
Marc did some of the initial accessibility audit work and part of the user journey mapping. He added to his accessibility skill set through working on this project.