Vodafone Help Hub

Year: 2021/22

My role: UX Designer and Researcher

About the project

Whilst at Vodafone UK, I redesigned the online help pages and information architecture to ensure users could easily self-serve instead of contacting support.

The challenge

How might we reduce the number of users who call in by empowering them to self-serve?

A history of negative reviews and poor survey scores, we wanted to make it easy for users to find the answers they need online by undertaking a full redesign.

2000 FAQs were notoriously difficult to sort through

We believed that understanding the problems with the layout and structure of the pages would ultimately support our business strategy of effortless support.

The outcome

£300K

Made in call reductions annually. Users could to find information they needed without calling - leading to cost saving

+58 NPS

The redesign saw a massive jump in the average net promoter score given by visitors

+16%

increase in issues fixed online. There was also a 29% increase in users who would recommend the pages

740

FAQs removed (from 2000 down to 260). A complete review and simplification of the old FAQ structure made it easier to find useful content whilst still covering 98% of intents

The approach

Design thinking methodology

Discovery

I set up two tests to help us understand problems and expectations of customers using the support centre

Research goals

Understand users expectations regarding support content
Identify expected structure of website support content and FAQs for both desktop and mobile
Understand behaviour around self service online

Research methodology

Usability testing

(moderated)

5 participants

60 minutes

Each session consistent of:

An Initial exploratory interview
Usability test (mobile and desktop) - users were asked to find top call-driving intents on the current support centre

Open card sorting

(unmoderated)

150 participants

Each session consisted of:

Organising the FAQ subject themes into categories they expect from a provider who offers mobile and broadband

Key findings

1

An excess number of FAQs confused and overwhelmed users

We should show only relevant content to limit information overload for users
We should review and restructure our FAQ content

2

The look and feel was viewed as clinical and impersonal

Reassuring visuals would lessen negative impact on emotional state of the user
Positive or encouraging copy should be introduced, with a personable tone

3

The search bar was completely missed by participants on mobile

Higher visual priority needed for search
Search component looks similar to our hero banner, which typically contains adverts (causing banner blindness)

4

The card sort showed grouped topics that made sense to users

Closed card sort needed to validate grouping and confirm category names
Tree test was needed to ensure findability for key intents

Validation

A closed card sort with 150 participants validated 8 groupings and category names from the open card sort

We reduced the 2000 FAQs down to 260 by removing those that no longer solved a purpose, or could be merged.

Users were asked to sort Vodafone's FAQs into the 8 categories previously identified in open card sorting.

A new taxonomy was then created.

Account

Billing

Pay monthly

Pay as you go

Broadband

Joining & leaving

Devices

SIM Card

ANALYSIS

Competitor reviews

Idea generation

I ran an ideation workshop with our cross-functional team focused on how might we best structure our content on the support hub.

We used competitor research as inspiration and focused our attention above the fold as I knew it was important for users to see relevant information as soon as they land on the page.

Validation

We tree-tested the proposed new taxonomy with users to see how easy it was to find the FAQ they were looking for.

VALIDATION

We tree-tested the proposed new taxonomy with users to see how easy it was to find the FAQ they were looking for.

Specifically

Validate 8 categories that resulted from the open card sort
Identify best approach statements vs questions (I had a theory that replacing questions with statements would make it quicker for users to scan the support knowledge base)

Tree testing showed a high success rate

Validation

After site mapping and testing, wireframes were created.

These were based on the workshop sketches and prioritised:

Search as the most powerful tool
Quick links for the top intents
Mobile first design

The solution

After testing mid-fidelity prototypes, I aligned these to our design system and delivered final designs..

Testing led to iterating on the designs before dev handover:

Turned the search bar into a sticky banner when user scrolls

Reduced number of quick links (previously taking up too much visual space mobile)

A title goes here. Click to edit and add your own.

This is a paragraph. Use this area to add any information you want to share with users. Just click "Edit Text" or double click here to change the text and make it your own. You can also adjust the paragraph's font, size and color so it fits your website’s theme.

This is a great place to tell users a story about your website and let them know more about what you offer. You may want to share information about your company's background, your team, or the services you provide. Be sure to keep the tone and voice consistent throughout the site so users become familiar with your brand.