JP. KOALA.com sells mattresses online to a Japanese audience. When I joined Koala, their existing Japanese website was a complete replica of their Australian site. The direct translation from the English copy made Japanese audiences wonder if the site is for them or not.
Goal of the project
Based on the results of the user research, I updated the Japanese home page featuring relevant content and localised message for our Japanese audience in order to improve its efficiency, effectiveness and user’s satisfaction.
My Role
Based on the user interviews and usability testing, I updated key personas and created their user journey map.
Also, I redesigned JP koala home page and several major pages working alongside, developers, copywriters and project managers from the beginning to the end. I ensured not only the site send the right message to the audience, but also our brand was consistently implemented throughout the site.
Approach
I started this project by gathering insights from the usability testing and user interviews conducted in Japan.
Several significant issues of the site overall
- Unique selling points didn’t attract users such as ‘Australian-made mattress‘.
- Marketing driven copies were confusing as there is no explanation why throughout the site.
- Australian models made users wonder who is an audience for this site.
- The blog articles were useful for users who have little knowledge of mattresses in general.
Personas
A Double income no kids couple (Misa & Taku) is the primary persona for the site. They have disposable income and both work in a professional field and live in busy lives.
Improving their quality of sleep is one of essential goals in buying a mattress as their work requires the highest performance every day.
For the HP, the content was restructured based on this persona’s goals and pain points.
User journey map
I created this journey map by interviewing users, stakeholders and customer support staffs as well as examining help desk inquiries and site feedbacks to identify service improvement opportunities across the whole experience and found out the first touch point of the users.
Misa & Taku
From the user research, there are several valuable insights and needs about this couple.
- They use mobiles to research and purchase with PCs.
- Taku usually makes a purchasing decision.
- They prefer trying physically at the store before the purchase.
- They tend to shop at popular market places such as Yahoo, Rakuten and Amazon. One of the reasons is to accumulate loyalty points for their future purchase.
- They prefer trying a mattress physically at a store before ordering.
- Only one of them stays home to confirm the delivery.
Results
