GO RVING WEBSITE REDESIGN
Go RVing is the consumer-facing voice of the RV industry with a mission to inspire potential RVers, spark curiosity, and raise awareness about the benefits and accessibility of RVing through rich, authentic, and diverse storytelling.
How does Go RVing redesign their look and feel while also addressing their extremely high bounce rate?
The Problem
Go RVing’s most common user flow has a bounce rate of nearly 75%. Users who search for broad RV-related keywords (e.g. RV rental, go rving) click on a Go RVing paid search ad. Instead of arriving on the homepage, they arrive on the Sign Up Form, which demands personal information from the user before the site even proves the value of what it can offer. As a result, it’s not surprising that 3 out of every 4 users bounce immediately. Based on that insight, we hypothesize that users are looking for a more personalized site experience with less dead ends.
My Role
I am one of two UX designers on an Agile team of two back-end developers, two front-end developers, two UI designers, two account managers, a creative director, an analyst, a strategist, a project manager and a quality engineer.
I am responsible for creating the content audit, sitemap, taxonomy, navigation, template identification and wireframes using Axure, Google Sheets/Slides/Docs.
Our Proposed Solution(s)
Stakeholder interviews revealed that the current site does not resonate emotionally with first time users around the RV lifestyle. We decided to redesign the navigation to trigger interest with first time users by positioning RVs as the ultimate basecamp.
Challenges I Faced
During ideation, I went through several different navigation concepts that did not initially satisfy user needs. One design concept that I prototyped incorporated a Sign Up link in the utility navigation. After discussing with stakeholders, we determined that this link is misleading. The user is not signing up for a newsletter. In reality, the user is signing up to get contacted by the business. Based on this insight, I deprioritized this Sign Up link, and instead, created a component lower on the homepage that had more real estate to provide context.
My Measures of Success
I will know we are successful with the user when we inspire freedom, enable flexibility and highlight feasibility. I will know we are successful with the client when we increase top of mind awareness of the Go RVing brand, increase engagement by creating clear user journeys on site, and increase content consumption across the site.
What I Learned
This project taught me the importance of establishing a benchmark to measure against the redesign. By kicking off the content audit and taxonomy early in the UX phase, I was able to account for all possible content types and functionality requirements before moving into development.