ORCA

ORCA provides a public transit card that can be used for buses, trains, and ferries in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. This card provides a variety of service options from low income to monthly business passes.

Role: UX Writer

Company: ORCA / Student Project

Time: 2019 / 5 Weeks

Team: 1 UX Writer

Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Developer Tools

challenge

How might I make it easier for orca.com members, to add money to their card through the website?

The ORCA site is outdated and underfunded. I wanted to evaluate the current users for the site and how I could improve their processes keeping in mind budget and overhead.

research

Initial Analysis

I conducted user research to define accessibility standards and voice for ORCA.

Initial accessibility Theories

Information is disorganized

Language is not at a universal reading level

Links are mislabeled

Voice Analysis Takeaways

Content is over explained and confusing

Content is phrased in businesses terms and not in the users language

What I wanted to learn

Defining the users

The public transit system in the Puget Sounds has a variety of users. I chose to focus on people with different needs, people who aren’t driving, and low or no income users. This includes people with disabilities, non-English speaking, vision impaired, homeless, and even tourists. I focused on voice and accessibility. These users face the biggest obstacles using the site.

Development

Defining the voice

Getting the voice right can save users tons of time and frustration and even make them perceive the business in a different light. Here I defined the voice guidelines from the keywords the company wanted to portray. Then I applied them in three different ways to understand what works best for ORCA.

Voice Guidelines

Voice Guidelines Applied

flow Testing

The direct path

Because of time constraints, I conducted secondary research for this project. I reviewed the current user flow to see where value could be added. I updated this to be more efficient by providing a clear path to take that’s easier to understand. I focused primarily on the home page, navigation and rewriting the flow for customers to add money onto their card through the site.

ideation

SOLUTION

ENGINEERING TAKES TIME…

Writing is quicker and cheaper to implement. By addressing the writing alone of a website, users can have better experiences with products while gaining some wins for the business, and all of this with a low overhead cost

Original homepage

Here I focused on the navigation, the intro bullet points and the pdf links at the bottom. The language is in the businesses terms instead of the users. The language was not accessible.

NAVIGATION

Have a card is confusing, it is now more accurate and actionable as “Account” because that is where the link takes you.

“Get a card” was appropriate language and leads you to all the options of getting a card. It also cannot be “buy a card” because there is certain eligibility to receive free cards. I did change the the text to title case for all of these links to make them appear more professional and trustworthy

“ORCA options” doesn’t tell the user what kind of information they will find by clicking on the link. “Use A Card” is more accurate.

I removed ORCA from the nav to clean things up. A user on the site already knows they are looking at ORCA options so restating it is redundant.

FAQ is not accessible to people who don’t speak English as a first language. Changing this makes it easily translatable.

Home Page

By clearly describing what the card does, the title is more accurate and and trustworthy

Consolidated information into one sentence

All lines are for the PDF’s below

Specifically for the add value problem I made sure to add this to the home page

Here I focused on making things clear.

Adding value can be done offline but this is not clear.

Retailers is not descriptive enough. The PDF represents the locations you can add value or buy a card offline.

Ticket vending machines is also confusing. This PDF is actually telling you the locations you’re able to buy or add value to your card.

Product list is a business term. I’ve changed this to Fare Options, as it telling you about pricing.

A new customer coming to the site would not know what an E-Purse or a pass is. This PDF also tells you about more options than just those two services.

The last PDF is actually an application which is very important for users that need to apply. It is not clear in the before that this is where you can obtain this information.

Account Page

1. These three areas are already on this page and were removed for redundancy

2. “E-Purse” is a confusing term, shorten this to “Transfer Funds”

3. “Products” is a business term, changed this to “Fare Options” as the link leads to all the options to add fare.

4. FAQ is not accessible and does not translate well. “Get Help” is more informative and “Important Links” tells you where this link will lead to

I changed “My Cards” to “Select Cards” to make the process more actionable.

”Nickname” has been simplified to “Card Name” and E-Purse Balance has been changed to “Card Balance” to make them more accessible.

Most of the information here is redundant and too busy for most people to read.

I shortened the text to only what is necessary.

I’ve removed “E-Purse” and changed this phrase to “Card Balance” and “Add Value” so there is less confusion surrounding it.

“Setup Autoload” has been changed to “Automatic Payments.” People understand what automatic payments are.

Condensed all the sentenced into bullet point in the same location. Removed “Shopping” and “Shopping Cart” as you are not shopping for anything, you are adding value to your card. Changed “Fees/Charges” to “Amount” because the tone should be about the customer adding value not the company applying fees. Changed all business language to more helpful language.

• Less jargon

• Efficient statements

• Information is condensed and easier to find so customers will be less likely to abandon tasks

• Brand is seen as more trustworthy because links take you to accurate pages or files

• The need for customer service is reduced which can allocate funds to other areas

next steps

Continue Writing

The next steps would be to look into additional user flows and update the writing along those paths. I’d also like to test with different types of users, including new and existing users, as well as English and English as a second language users.

Next Project