Desborough Dragons

Desborough Dragons is a Lau Gar Kung Fu studio located in Northamptonshire, England. While initially established to offer after-school kung fu classes to primary school children, the club has since expanded to offering classes to adults as well. The business has previously relied on social media platforms and online directories to advertise their services but with their expanded audience, the need to support current and potential customers with a stronger online presence had become more evident.

Alongside delivering a high-fidelity prototype, our goal was to develop an understanding of the potential customers, create an intuitive user experience to direct users to the studio’s core offerings, leverage the club’s connection to the British Kung Fu Association (BKFA) and streamline the intake process for the business.

Business Members
Mike Malloy, Business Owner

Product Design Team
Patricia Catangui
Elaine Liman
Kimberly Peña

Supervising Staff
Dr. Sylvie Studente

Defining & Empathising with the Customers

The client’s previous research provided as a starting point for the research process, where our product design team then expanded upon their findings through secondary research into User Personas, Empathy Maps, User Needs Statements, and User Journey Maps.

  • As the main participants in class have primary been school children, their parents ultimately serve as the main customer group when considering the target market. Analytics data reveals that this group is typically encompassed by women between the ages of 20–35. Research shows that they make the decisions regarding which after school clubs their children attend and that they tend to work part-time around their children’s school hours.

  • Within the adult group, data analytics reveals that existing customers are largely male between 30–50 years old. Research also revealed that this group tends to work full-time and has a general interest in martial arts.

  • Similarly to the previous user group, data analytics reveals that this group is also largely male between the ages of 30–50. This group of customers tend to work full-time, regularly train in Kung-Fu, and have a specific interest in Kung-Fu activities at a National Level. They have been found to typically be university educated and work in professional industries.

Persona cards – a summarised description of each target user group including demographics and psychographics

Empathy maps – visualised summary of the different aspects of each persona’s experience

User needs statements – distilling each target user group’s need into a single sentence

User journey maps – mapping out each user group’s experience in the process of accomplishing a goal, including possible thoughts and mood levels

Wireframes & Prototyping

After developing a better understanding of the three target user groups, our team ideated and developed potential pages and content that allows for each target user group to easily view their needed information on the website.

When speaking with the client, our team received feedback regarding the feasibility of incorporating a booking system and a few requirements in regards to showcasing the brand’s colours (black and yellow) and advertising their promotional service for new clients.

Usability Testing

Upon approval from the client, these wireframes served as a basis for the high-fidelity prototype created in Figma.

The prototype then underwent a heuristics evaluation where a total of six evaluators helped in revealing usability testing in order to identify any insights that can help enhance the website’s usability at this point of development. In presenting the working prototype and feedback from evaluators, the client was able to have a better understanding of how potential viewers may experience the website first-hand.

High-fidelity prototype on Figma (feel free to click through!)

Reflections

Importance of understanding one’s users – during our first iteration of defining & empathising with the customers, our design team had difficulties in understanding the amount of information needed in order to create a user persona. We only recognised the shallowness of our grasp on the users when we advanced to the 'define' stage, which prompted us to reevaluate our approach. Upon deepening our understanding, the process of revising the empathy maps became considerably smoother, as our users became more relatable individuals. While occasionally frustrating, this adjustment ultimately facilitated the subsequent stages of our work.

Focus on usability and feasibility – collaborating within a product design team for a real client provided me with valuable insights into working with others to develop a solution. It highlighted the importance of brainstorming and exchanging ideas to ensure the creation of a purposefully functional website. While having previously worked on website design projects that emphasised aesthetics, this experience encouraged me to shift my focus towards addressing user needs.

Prioritising user needs – conducting user testing for the first time was a nerve-wracking experience as it meant exposing our work–from user experience to visuals–to external scrutiny. However by undergoing heuristics evaluations, the process was able to reveal any issues in the design in order to be corrected for the following iteration.