Overview

Ostelea is a Tourism & Hospitality University that belongs to Grupo Planeta (Editorial group). They have two sites; one for Spain and another one for Rabat. At first, the Rabat site was a clone from the Spanish site but the results were not as expected. We were asked to build a new website from scratch (maintaining the aesthetics) considering the peculiarities of the middle-east market.

The goal?

To improve the overall usability (navigation of the user, make the information more understandable and attractive) considering the peculiarities of the MENA user to as a consequence improve the conversion (LEADS).

MY ROLE :

UX Designer / Project Manager

Takeaways

After analyzing the existing data we encountered 3 main problems:

Slow > We needed to optimize the site (images, js, css)
UX not optimized for Mobile > Work on a Mobile-first design and a UX optimized for that device.
Too much information > Work on several levels of information not showing all at once. Also, include images and white space for better readability. We better get the user’s attention and trigger a “Request information” or a “Rendez-vous”.

🧠The key challenge

Website oriented to UX Morocco and Africa (define if the UX differs from the one we are accustomed to) and above all very focused on mobile since 87% of Ostelea Morocco sessions come from Mobile and the acting market is used to this device more than desktop. Improvement of the “Look & Feel” for brand positioning.

How might we design a website that is mobile-first, usable and relevant to MENA User?

👂🏻👁 User-research

In order to understand the real problem, and the MENA user’s needs we conducted eight interviews with current students from the bachelor's and master’s degrees from Rabat. Here are some of their answers and data I collected:

interviews Guideline:

Intro: Hello X, My name is Y. Thank you for your time, we really much appreciate it.

This interview is for research we’re doing for redesigning the current university website. As you are a student, we would like to know a bit more about you. Your responses are going to be really helpful. There’s no wrong or right answer. We are not trying you. Just feel comfortable and free to answer. The more information we gathered, the better.

Demographics

Women / men
Age
Where are you from originally? (city or village)
What do you do? (student and/or works/interns)

Education

Can you tell me about your education before?
Where did you go to school? And college?
In what language/languages were you taught?

Careers

Can you tell me about the time you had to choose your career?
Did you always know what you wanted to study? What other careers did you consider? And universities?
Did you consider studying abroad?
What universities do you consider international?
What made you choose hospitality and tourism?
What are your expectations for the future?

About Ostelea

How did you hear about Ostelea?
Was it you who chose or your parents?
If it was you, how did you convinced your parents?
What made you choose Ostelea?
Can you tell the process until you became a student?
What was the most challenging part of it?
How would you describe Ostelea?
What are your plans for the future?
What is your dream job?
Would you recommend Ostelea?
Are there many international students?
Do you have difficulties for paying your studies?
Do you receive any help? From your family, uni, government?

Rabat life’s

How’s life in Rabat?
What do you like most?
Where do you live?
Who do you live with?
What do you do in your free time?
Are there many international students?

Internet top of mind’s

Could you tell me 3-5 websites that you use most in your daily life? (not university-related) For leisure, reading the news, travel, inspiration…
And 3 apps?
How do you normally communicate with your friends? (call/SMS/WhatsApp/Facebook…)
And with your parents?
What about institutions?

About ostelea website

Could you please give us some feedback? What do you think of it? Is there anything you would improve or include?

Key findings

Western look and feel is perceived as modern
5/5 say campus life is very important for them (especially because they study Hospitality)
The sense of belonging to a university is key ( merchandising)
4/5 highlight professor’s knowledge & mentoring
4/5 say parents are the university decision-makers

Looking on Google Analytics, we discovered that the primary user persona are_

👩🏼‍🏫 Competitive Analysis & Education market trends

I order to see possible opportunities for improvement of the current site, I did research on the Education market.

✍🏼 Defining the new features

After analyzing Ostelea user persona, their drivers and needs, and also understanding the market, I made some decisions on what should be included in the design to later test.

Those decisions were based on: