Night Safari Redesign
In the last 2 weeks, I was tasked to work in a team of 4, which consists of Janice, Nicole, Julia and myself. The objective was to design a solution based on the opportunities we had identified within an existing business. We selected Night Safari for this design sprint challenge simply because the majority of us haven’t been there and thought that it would be fun to be dedicating our work to the world’s first nocturnal zoo.
Timeline
My Role
Tools
2 weeks
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Figma
Asana
Optimal Workshop
To get a better understanding of Night Safari's content and how it is organised, we took some time to study the Night Safari website. We also benchmarked Night Safari against direct and indirect competitors, which included other attractions such as Singapore Art Week, Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum as well as popular tourist attractions such as Gardens by the Bay, S.E.A Aquarium and Universal studios. When we first looked at the Night Safari website, we couldn’t really find fault with it. It had a clean design, a clear navigation system and a neat layout. Thus, we set out to dived deeper into the business operations.
Content audit + competitor analysis
Business analysis
The global pandemic dealt tourism a huge blow. With the stoppage of overseas tourists, Night Safari has seen more than 70% drop in footfall. With that, Night Safari has turned its focus to the Singapore market. Therefore, we want to make a clearer distinction between the different wildlife parks and increasing awareness and driving traffic to Night Safari
Revenue
Based on FY 19/20, footfalls have dropped in numbers across all parks. Night Safari in particular has never seen an increase of more than 0.7% since 2016. Singapore, makes up almost 90% of the traffic to wrs.com.sg in the last 6 months with 54.87% of them dropping off without interacting with the website. The bounce rate is higher than average, causing an impact on the conversion rate that leads to ticket purchase. (*Statistics reflect all pages within WRS including Night Safari)
Business Goals
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Reduce bounce rate by capturing and holding the attention of users landing on the Night Safari Page
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Convince users to go through with the ticketing process to eventually step foot into the park
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Create a unique and memorable park experience that could generate positive word-of-mouth spread
User Research
We regrouped the next day to share our findings on the competitors and also used that as a base to structure our user interview questions
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Objectives for user interview:
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To better understand the current sentiments and trends of the attractions in Singapore
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To understand the needs and frustrations of Night Safari’s visitors
We set out to interview 8 people residing in Singapore who have visited a wildlife park via video call. Within 2 days, we had our findings and proceeded to use affinity mapping to work out the common themes across users.
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Our interview covered 5 key areas and here is a summary of our research coverage:
Key Insights
01
Participants are now exploring attractions in Singapore that they’ve never been to or have
not been to for a long time because of the launch of Singapore Rediscover Vouchers.
02
A straightforward SRV redemption gives users
a push to commit to their ticket purchase.
03
Immersive engagement is key to creating
a memorable experience.
Persona and customer journey map
From the findings, we identified 1 personas — Skylar.
The most important part of the journey mapping process was to identify Skylar’s key concerns.
We were able to identify the opportunities for improvement and the potential solution we could create to resolve Skylar’s concerns.
Area of focus
Based on the redefined goal, we’ve decided to focus on the following areas to address user’s needs while maintaining the business goals in mind.
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Touch point # 1 - Website, Planning and booking process.
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Touch point # 2 - Onsite, Park Visit experience
Touch point # 1 , builds the foundation of a holistic experience, serves to help users obtain information of night safari, market on nocturnal animals to attract visitors, promotes the mobile app and check out process.
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Touch point # 2 , deepens the holistic experience, the mobile app serves to enhance navigation ability within the premises and to promote engagement in the park.
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Feature Inventory
To identify what sets Night Safari apart from other attractions in Singapore. We set out to explore features in our competitors’ products that Night safari do not have, and could potentially help enhance our user’s experience
Here are the features that sets Night safari apart from the rest:
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Digital map - The current website provides a digital map that allows users to plan their visit
Here are the features that could set Night Safari apart and be a solution for our users:
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Interactive map - A feature in a mobile app that could help user to navigate in the dark and could potentially provide essential information for users to plan their trip
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Step by step SRV redemption - A simplify checkout process that could help users to check out easier
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Show wait time, show bookings - A feature added into the mobile app that could enhance the user experience in night safari
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Immersive experience - Thermal sensors a camera feature that could help user to spot animals in the dark
Heuristic Evaluation
To identify the issues on the existing website and onsite experience, we conducted a Heuristic Evaluation.
Aesthetics and Minimalist design and Error prevention were two of the major issues found on the Night Safari site.
As for our second evaluation that was conducted based on a field trip, we found out that information availability and visibility are key concerns that impact visitors’ decision-making process and their experience as a whole while at the park.
These issues leave a negative memory on the visitors which in turn affect their decision to return or advocate for the park.
Thus, we need to close these gaps to improve and enhance visitors’ experience from start to end.
Solution
In the next couple of tasks, we focused on designing our solution for users.
Based on the findings through our research, we’ve pinned down the following key solutions that could help enhance our user’s experience.
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Improve information architecture on the website
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Simplify SRV checkout process on the website
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Improve onsite experience in the dark through physical and mobile touch points
Information Architecture
During the UT on the current site, we noticed that most users had difficulty finding “Dining” within the navigation bar. The confusion between “Plan your visit” and “Things to do” was also highlighted.
We conducted card sorting to improve page organisation, as well as grouping certain features as stand-alone so that users can gain access to it easier.
current site
Proposed site
Feature Prioritisation
We listed the features that would best meet users needs, and used the feature prioritisation matrix to map out the key features to create (see highlighted squares), based on its impact to both the users and the business.
touch point #1 : online
touch point #2 : onsite
Sketches
After aligning everyone on what features to work on, we went home to do some initial sketches and prepare to share with each other the next morning.
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Wire-framing + Iterations
We discussed our sketches the next day and agreed on the final designs to create. Because we had a clear idea what to create, the wireframe and prototype were out in a few days. The interactions created were based on the key features we wanted to demonstrate so we prioritised those pages.
The latest prototype
Usability testing results
Across the 3 rounds of usability testings we did, there was a significant improvement in the
Ease of Use rating.
touchpoint # 1 - website
touchpoint # 2 - Onsite
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Consider solutions that can retain users so that they have a purpose to continue using the app even when taken out of environmental context.
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Consider helping park hoppers reduce toggling between different site tabs i.e Interactive map shown in hero banner could be made possible across all other WRS park, so park hoppers could find information on the same site
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Check with stakeholders, project manager, engineers to ensure that ideation is achievable
Final thoughts on this project
Looking back, I was glad that we leveraged on each team members’ strengths in this project and had a clear project plan to guide us. Even though we did delay the prototype design and usability testing by a day, having a project plan lets us see how we could workaround those delays and still keep the project on track.