As a group we have carried out a heuristic markup on Virgin Wines, identifying problems within their events, about us and checkout pages. Throughout this research we depicted unclear headings and links which were often taking the users to the same page as another action. This is an error we look forward to focus on when redesigning by create simplistic, yet engaging pages with more concise text that clearly states the action in which the user is taking.
Events Pages:
Here we depicted apart the Wine Tasting page where we immediately noticed a different use of terminology, meaning the user clicks onto Wine Tasting to be opposed with the heading 1 (h1) of the page to be Live wine tastings. This contradicts the user as they may believe they have landed on a different page to what they clicked. Personally I interpreted ‘Live Wine Tastings’ as online streams and so when I realised it was the same thing I was surprised. However this then continued into the sidebar on the left of screen where the user is displayed with various options, this included; Live Events Home, Live Events, FAQs and Get Involved. The additional use of another terminology for wine tasting, ‘Live Events Home’, further contradicts the user as the all these different terms insinuate there are other types of events. As a result this becomes misleading and confusing to their customers as the only events in which Virgin Wines produce are ‘Wine Tastings’, therefore this is a significant aspect we wish to ovulate and discuss as a group to gather simpler and clearer definitions and terms about varied details.
Next I found that the style of top banner resembled a poster, cover or advertisement for a Netflix show and appeared off brand. This design also came across flirtatious with style of photo/illustration as it was a closeup of a lady smirking with her lips. In response to this I suggested how the brand could advertise their events more here by including either images of the cities they attend, what the events look like or the range of wine being displayed like the tasting event it is.
Furthermore when evaluating the content and copy of text, we found numerable issues as a group, in particular the unnecessary use of certain copy such as ‘You’ll love our Wine Tastings!’. This felt forced and ingenue, making the user question whether they would actually love the events. The copy is bold and a larger size font making it to the top of the hierarchy for the page. We believe this doesn’t follow the Don Normans 7 Principles as this piece of text was not relevant to the body of text and didn’t include important information. Instead we believe if something is a larger text it should be about information which you would want to linger in the users mind like figures, deals, quotes, reviews- all of which reflecting a positive outlook on the brand and wanting the user to keep coming back. We also found issues with the embedded Youtube video, suggesting it could be autoplayed and even made full screen or full length.
In addition to this through our user journey we explored the listing page for Wine Tasting events by all live events. This was a small option on the sidebar and should be displayed in a larger format to really capture the users attention as this is main point of focus for wine tasting page, to purchase and read about the upcoming events.
Here we outlined multiple problems through the user interface as information was compact, flat and too much description. This creates an uninviting page and call to actions as well as overwhelming the user as they would not know what to read or look at first, especially when text differed between the regular and bold weights.. To improve this we created clearer and simple listing designs per product by only demonstrating the date, time and location of each individual events with a button to read more/ book. We also found that the only pictures across the pages related to Wine Tasting were images of the cities they attended and this was only demonstrated as a featured image on each event listed. As a result we suggested showing images of the events venues and what the events look like in each location to show the variety they offer. I believe this also adds a sense of security and reassurance for the user as currently they are unable to see what they are purchasing with the ticket with no information or visuality of what to expect.
Lastly for the Wine Tasting pages we discovered inconsistency with the colours and fonts of headers. For example on newly designed pages the new guidelines emphasised the use of the ‘Joy’ font in the bright ‘Virgin Red’ colour, however when scrolling through the individual events one heading is black in an unknown font in light/regular whereas the section following this has a heading in bold, red Roboto font. This is something as a group we want to tackle to establish themes within our work as well as UX rules by producing consistent sizing, colours and fonts for specific types of text like the rules for headings vs body copy, producing text styles as a team.
Checkout Pages:
Our second lot of heuristic markups were based on the checkout process and the users journey throughout the different stages of this user flow. When the user is presented with the Payment Details page we found a lack of payment method options which opposed an accessibility issue and other members wanted to focus on created an express checkout. Even though I think express checkouts are extremely useful and displayed more options then the current designs, I did not believe this is something we should focus on as we were informed that 95% of customers use credit cards as a payment method. Therefore I prioritised how card details and shipped options were displayed, keeping this as minimal as possible due to majority of users dropping off at the second page of checkout which we believe is due to then unnecessary amount of tasks and information to complete/fill in.
About Us Page:
Thirdly, myself, Rishabh, Sihina and Hashry carried out heuristic markups and analysis for the About Us page. To start, the style of banner here is different compared to the events page, making us question which one is more on point with the brands identify as they are both weren’t seen elsewhere on recently updated pages, instead we discussed how we would like a theme across our pages so when it is contrasted to other pages within the website, it is not totally out of place due to resembling features of other pages we designed.
From this page, I evaluated how headings could be clearer by having shorter, more concise sentences and use of words as this is something the user would scan or read briefly. Whereas the current design is uninviting and lacks engagement, this is because personally I couldn’t quickly scan over text on this page due to being over the top with its words and so I had to either re-read or slowly gather information. As a result as user would struggle to retain information and drop-off early in the user flow as people would ‘not be bothered’ to read that much information, especially when presented in a stack of text.
Opportunity Outcomes:
To conclude with our heuristic analysis, as a group we highlighted aspects which we believe are most important as well as issues we found and solutions we generated. From these notes we found that there was a lack of motion/ animation and user interaction with the investigated pages of Virgin Wines. We also interpreted that information categories were unclear and showed a lack of visual imagery.
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