#grad701

At the beginning of this semester, I was so confused and kept thinking of the final mobile app design, however, after few talks with G, I realised that process and experiment are more important. What we are expected to be handed in are the overall conclusion and a summerise of what we learned during those 12 weeks.

This semester, Angela and I work together as a team. I knew nothing about customer journey map before. We were very confused until we talked to G and he explained what we need to do to us. Because we both interested in fashion and clothing, we decided to navigate about it. Customer journey map is focused on user experience and user testing, the aim is to know customer satisfaction during the experience. In addition, companies need to think how to re-targeting customers and increase a chance for them to revisit the store. I learned how to use different ways to present data in a clear and smart way. We have been looking at lots of interesting customer journey map, and we decided to use a 2 minutes video to present it.

In the first few weeks, we did a lot of research on customer journey map. We found out that the main purpose is to increase sales, understand customers’ emotion and increase satisfaction between customer and employee which means a good customer follow up service. We had a few experiment and research based on other clothing brands. For example, we had a really good shopping experience in Country road. I knew the store since I was in high school and the staff there were really helpful and they always had a promotion going on. G suggested us may be looking at business dashboards and gathering all the data and present in an interesting way, however, we thought maybe the business data is not that important and we weren't able to get all the business data as well. However, we got a chance to experience making a business dashboard.

In the last few weeks, Angela and I decided to focus on Peteralexander and we went to both retail and online store. We recorded each step we have done and use ourselves as a persona in order to create the video. We even talked to the store staff and found out something they can improve on. Although we were really happy during the whole shopping experience, we thought both of us were still students and some of the pajama were quite expensive. We suggested them maybe to offer a student discount, although a 10% off may not have a big difference in price, however, it may attract students to purchase and shop in the store. While making the video, we re-clarify the category in different shopping stage and focused more on the during purchase and after purchase stages. Before purchase was pretty much just to notice and discover the brand.

This semester we need to find an area we interested in, and have more in-depth research into it. I got the chance to know more about the customer journey mapping. It is a diagram that illustrates the steps customers go through in engaging with the company, whether it be a product, an online experience, retail experience or service. I realised that the customer journey mapping does not only play an essential role in UI/UX design. It is also an important step that can determine business success.

In the beginning, Ching and I have little struggled with this project. We focused on the final product too much instead of concreting with the process work. But fortunately, we soon noticed this. We spent first six weeks researching the customer journey. I learned that there are lots of businesses are using customer journey maps to improve customer experience. Every company wants to make every experience a customer has as good as it can be. Therefore, customer touch points became essential. This is the information I barely knew before. I learned that developing an understanding of each touch point means that you can design better user and better customer experiences. Therefore, we decided to experiment as a customer ourselves to figure out what customers want. We choose the brand “Peter Alexandre” which is an Australia's leading sleepwear designer brand. We engaged both online shopping experience and retail store experience. I came to know from a customer’s perspective. They want their experience with a brand to be connected and seamless. They expect companies to understand and remember, across multiple touchpoints. For example, who they are and what they’re looking for so that the necessary information is available and without the necessity to repeat or clarify their needs.

In the last six weeks, we decided to arrange our findings in visual ways. We did few customer journey maps of different brands. In the beginning, our customer journey maps are not very comprehensive. It got better when we came to know more about the customer journey maps, and experiment the customer journey ourselves. We made a storytelling video to express what we have learned from our research. Ching and I worked well in this section. I am responsible for the editing and animation part. She is responsible for the illustration part. We made the storyboards together and followed these steps to make our final video. I understudied the customer journey map can help company to identify gaps in service or communications, and see where customers interact with your business. For UX designers, taking the perspective of the customer is essential to understanding their experience with an interface. Customer journey maps may indicate what is the easiest way for customers as they move from one touchpoints to another. For example, is the customer able to connect to an agent quickly through an IVR menu? Can they switch from social media to the voice channel with ease? What is his satisfaction score post contact? The answers to such questions reveal how the customer feels about every step along the journey. It can help designers to concentrate efforts and expenditure on what matters most to maximise effectiveness.