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Tha Dogg House

Creating the experience that represents the heart of the community and stays as a manifesto of it

After the biggest challenge that all the hospitality industry had to face during the Government restrictions, on 15 April 2021 a new idea was taking place in Fradshom, Cheshier. 

I was called to create a new website for the new Bar, which that born as a solution to stay in business to one of the iconic social/art hub pub in town.

 

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Tha’ Dogg House is Frodsham’s first outside venue providing street food, drinks, and vibes!

The challenge was a perfect storm for a UX research case, I was digging into the emotional behavior for socializing again after a long period of time.

Case of Study

New bar wants to create a website to have a presence online.

Simple

Accessible

Understanding of their target users.

Task

Design a new website for desktop.

Informative and interactive.

Goal 

Design and build a online website that can be tested with users.

The tools

Survey Monkey

Figma

Miro

WIX.COM

Duration

10 days

My Role

UX Researcher / UX Designer. Web desing

The Process

Research

Benchmark analysis 

Interviews

Online Survey

Analysis 

Affinity diagram

Customer Journey Map

Design

Low-Fi sketches

User Flow/booking flow

Prototyping 

Bring it to life

Web Design

Design Specifications

Web design 

The Challenge

Identify the motivations of the customers to go bar to the public venues after long periods of lockdown. How to integrate the soul of the community with a new concept bar.

I looked at how other bars, top of the industry, solve this problem (benchmark), I performed usability tests, applied Online surveys, and master the note-taking techniques for this research case.

I used that information to focus my research and ultimately improve the quality of my designs.

Goal #1: Design and build a clickable prototype that can be tested with users, along with a detailed set of wireframes.

Goal #2: Create a design that has the intention of resolve the issues around the pain points identified in the research and analysis.

Project Goals
Research
Research

Learning about our customers

Bar Entrance
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BENCHMARK ANALYSIS

Top leaders of the industry, Benchmark analysis:

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ONLINE SURVEY

50 Users respond to an online survey

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USABILITY TEST

3 Usability test / Note-taking

BENCHMARK ANALYSIS

What are the best practices of the industry?

As a starting point, I reviewed Hotels-related websites to see what they’re doing well that I can emulate when it comes to designing my own room booking process. Most of the websites were Hotels, but I was also interested to see if I can learn anything from other types of booking platforms, such as Booking.com.

During my benchmark research, I came to realise that for a relatively simple task as finding and booking a room, many different solutions exist across Hotels websites. This made me wonder how users are interacting with the different booking experiences and I kicked off my user research to understand their needs and pain points better.

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ONLINE SURVEY

How do you feel about visiting a pub just after the lockdown?

To learn more about the goals of people that use hotels websites and apps, I created an online survey. Ideally, I would have placed this survey on a Hotels website to intercept people as they’re using the software. In this case, I sent the survey to friends and colleagues instead (who have used an Hotel website within the past 6 months).

Key findings:

  • The primary user goal is to research book a room, followed by check rates and the hotel information.

  • Value for money is the most important factor when booking a room

  • Users want to find clear information about the hotel and the conditions.

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INTERVIEWS & USABILITY TESTS

Confusion, distrust and mistakes -
the common themes of booking a room

To dive deeper into understanding hotels customers’ mental models and behaviours, I conducted in-depth user interviews, followed by comparative usability testing sessions. During the sessions, users completed the same room booking tasks on two different Hotel websites.

It was surprising to see that none of the participants had a straightforward booking experience. Even people who are frequent travelers struggled with some of the steps along the way. Although their pain points and frustrations were different, they were all related to selecting the right type of room and fare type and booking conditions.

Data from the different research sources

Analysis

Analysis

Key insights form the researched data

Usability Test (data)
Benchmark   (data)
Survey (data)
Note Taking (data)
Affinity diagrams
Journey Map
Identify Patterns