Timespro Redesign to Increase Engagement & Lead Quality

TimesPro mission is to equip students with sector-focused knowledge and industry-relevant skills, and prepare them to seize winning career opportunities facilitated through our countrywide network of corporate associations.

TimesPro team was struggling with their Wordpress website theme and wanted a new custom design & development that can remove all the technical issues, improve the look and feel, reduce bounce-backs and increase lead quality.

Project Overview

• Redesigned the Website to improve engagement, reduce bounce-backs and increase lead quality
• Completed redesign in 60 days following mutiple design sprints and launched the facelift in 120 days
• Mentored 2 designers to design the UI and banners for the site

My Responsibility

• User Research (Qualitative)
• Interviewing Stakeholders, Managers, Students
• Wireframing + Iterations
• Developed the site on Wordpress using Elementor
• Co-ordination with the development team (Gatsby)
• Usability Testing

Initial Problem

I was asked to improve the overall look and feel of the site, design as mobile-first and make sure we don't face technical issues with the site. 

Diving deep into the problem, finding the business goals

The initial problem statement did not gave me enough clarity on why they wanted a new look and feel so i had a white board session with the stakeholders to understand 

Why they think the look and feel is not good?

What do they perceive as good? and why?

What are the business problems they are having with the website, and their expectations

Redefining the problem

We brainstormed on these questions and found the root problems that were bothering the stakeholders

High Bounce rates 90%+, people are coming and leaving

Too many leads but rare of them are relevant, a lot of sales team time is being wasted

Technical issues were hampering their campaigns, image and business

Understanding the market we are in

We didn't have a big design team, I was the only one working on redesigning the whole site, learning from the research of our competitors was the fastest method to do a website redesign in 30 days.

Re-looking current site and finding the problems

OVERALL LOOK & FEEL

After researching about competitors and re-looking the TimesPro site, i found that our design language is old, boring colours, overlays, inconsistent CTA's and layouts. If we want to compete with Upgrad, GreatLearning and other market leaders, we need a design language that supports at-least equality if not superiority.

USABILITY ISSUES

I was working at the TimesPro office and we had a study centre at the same location, so talking to students was a breeze. I also installed Hotjar in the TimesPro website, did heat-map tracking and launched a feedback section on the site that gave me a lot of insights to understand where we are going wrong. Essentially website has two main parts, Homepage & Program Pages.

Debugging Homepage

Maximum traffic comes at the homepage, but 90%+ bounce rates

Challenges

1. Irrelevant image in the banners, not resonating with the User needs.
2. Benefits not clearly mentioned, people are not able to trust why they should go ahead with TimesPro
3. Not clear sorting of programs, its hard to understand what all fields TimesPro has courses for
4. Boring Student testimonials, people hardly read so much text
5. They are trying to use this site for corporate deals as well, who never comes.
6. Search is never used, most of the people come to site in the Awareness Stage and not in the Consideration stage and it doesn't even work.

Debugging Program Page

Each program is for different kind of users, but follows a consistent structure, leads were coming but most of them were irrelevant.

Challenges

1. People are not clear about the program from the start, they just scroll the page just to know this program is not for them.
2. Constantly fixed form does more harm than good, people don't read anything and just fill the form even when they are window shopping. Which adds tremendous load on the sales team
3. Horizontal Menu tab have a limitation, and when sections increases in words or numbers the layout gets messed up.

Finding the user challenges & needs

I was working at the TimesPro office and we had a study centre at the same location, so talking to stakeholders, sales team, product managers, digital marketing managers & students was a breeze and it gave me a lot of insights that led me to understand our USP's and where we are going wrong.

Most of them comes to TimesPro to get an assured job, they are not financially well or meritorious, but are hardworking and dedicated

Many don't have a good financial background and want EMI or pay-as-you-earn payment models

A lot of people are not clear about the course timeline and its fees, and don't go ahead with TimesPro post consultation call

The facelift

The most important thing for the business was to get better quality leads on their landing pages, making sure that the marketing money is well spent.

After testing multiple ideas, discussing wireframes with the stakeholders & product managers we tested the product page first as the landing page to see how it's performing, both design wise and technically. Once the whole team was happy with the design, i redesigned the homepage based on my learning and user needs.

Product Page Facelift

Responsive banner design. Three highlights of the program in the first fold, along with an enquire now button. For both Awareness and Consideration stage users.

Highlights at the top, program breakdown in the right

Highlights at the top, always give clarity to the user about the programRight vertical section can sustain long names and multiple sections without breaking the layoutFor Mobile, everything was just by scroll and we hid the complex sections

Reducing bounce-rates by more relevant content beyond the program details

I added two more sections after the program page, Featured programs & Industry news.Users can get educated about our new programs and industry news that are relevant for them

Homepage Facelift

Clear communication and highlights at the first fold, with a slider for multiple updates

The first headline clearly communicates what TimesPro does, along with all the crucial points, users are need to have trust on TimesProSince TimesPro does a lot of events, webinars and placements, i designed a sliders that can accomadate any kind of update

Well defined industries and available courses

It's important the people know TimesPro has courses in multiple industries, that helps users to navigate better and have more trust.

Highlighting Advantages as per user needs

After brainstorming with stakeholders and managers, we concluded these advantages that separate us from our competitors

Video Testimonials to increase engagement

Instead of text, we used video testimonials that increase the average time spent on site, and built a better connection with our users.

Visit Timespro Website >

Challenges faced & what I learnt

The major challenge i faced was getting approvals for the designs. Educating the stakeholders & backing-up my findings with data was not enough. They were in love with the homepage image and were stubborn on not changing the image, i tried multiple times to make them understand that we have to change it but it was denied every-time. Once i proved that the new product page is working well for business, people started to trust the design process and with the constant push, i finally got approval for the new homepage design.

"Sometimes people don't trust us, even though when we know they are wrong. Instead of just talking and trying to prove them wrong, we should prove us right by doing a small test, if not one then another, all what matters is the perseverance"

People who i am thankful to

I am very proud that I got an opportunity to work with TimesPro and I thank Mr. Amiya Ranjan (My Reporting Manager), Neha Jhunjhunwala (General Manager - Strategy and Marketing) & Mr. Manish Srivastava (VP of Marketing) for believing in me and giving me their full support, Mr. Ramesh Oruganti (Senior Content Writer), Ms. Salima Charania (Sr. Digital Marketing Manager), Ms. Shweta Bhoite Jain (Digital Marketing Consultant) for their constant guidance and insights.

I also would thank to Yatharth(Senior Visualizer) & Niyati(UI/UX Designer) for their dedication and working alongside with me on this project who had a big role in making TimesPro a reality.