Elizabeth Mattfeld Career Coaching Case Study

Mac Computer with a mockup of Elizabeth Mattfeld's website

Elizabeth Mattfeld Career Coaching for Public Health Officials Case Study

Elizabeth wants to transition into her Career Coaching business full time

Client: Elizabeth Mattfeld

Roles: UX Design, Research, Branding, Testing

Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Calendely

Problem Statement

Elizabeth wants to fully transition into her online career coaching business. She wants to specialize her coaching to only include public health officials. Public health comes with certain stressors and Elizabeth can provide empathetic coaching and guidance with her 25 years of experience.

Overview

Elizabeth Mattfield is in the process of career relocation and has wanted to start an online coaching business for professionals in the mental health community. She is looking for a site that is dedicated to revitalizing clients current work and assist in planning steps for achieving professional and personal goals in the fields of public health.

Research

Research Goals

Find patterns in competitor sites that encourage interactions and emotional connections with the user.
Identify public health professional's goals, motivation and areas of stress in their career and support system.

Objectives

Understand what type of career coach public health professionals feel comfortable with.
Identifying frustration areas and patterns to connect better with the user encourages interaction with CTA's.

Direct Competitors

Strengths:

Great testimonials and plenty of CTA's throughout the homepage

Strengths:

Large testimonials right under hero image

Strengths:

Concise sections that describe the work fruition offers

Weakness:

Too much text to read through with not enough visual hierarchy to differentiate important information

Weakness:

Buttons are vague and unclear what action is being taken

Weakness:

Unclear message in the hero with no CTA. Bottom of the home page is not organized and CTA's are dull gray making them appear deactivated

Summary

Searching for coaches that were dedicated to only professionals in the mental health field was harder than expected. Imagery is important to help get the positive messages across along with text that is easy to read, informative, and not to lengthy. Fun bright colors are good for this type of site but colors like red or too many colors can be overwhelming to look at. There will be a lot of information to present so having clear defined sections will help with the user find the info they are looking for.

User Interviews

Goals

Find patterns in competitor sites that encourage interactions and emotional connections with the user.
Identify public health professional's goals, motivation and areas of stress in their career and support system.

Objectives

Find patterns in competitor sites that encourage interactions and emotional connections with the user.
Identify public health professional's goals, motivation and areas of stress in their career and support system.

What was learned

All the participants thought it would be beneficial if they worked with a career coach that specialized in psychology. They felt it would be reassuring for their career coach to understand the nuances in their career. A common theme participants wanted to work on were career goals like interview skills, soft skills, future planning, communication skills and confidence. The most frustrating aspect of the participants were working with people or youth that were apathetic or have no interest/motivation for improvement. The participants all had good support systems at home with family and friends; the participants represent the clients' need for guidance in areas like goals, planning, and skills and instead of therapeutic needs.

User Persona

Maria Anderson

Maria Anderson

Age37

OccupationClinical TherapistGenderFemaleLocationNew Haven, Connecticut

StatusMarried, 2 kidsArchetypeStressed Perfectionist

Compassionate
Pro-active
Resourceful
Dependable

Brands

Bio

Maria is a clinical therapist who is starting to feel burnt out at her job, which is beginning to affect her home life. She understands that she needs to take care of her mental health to care for her patients properly. Maria wants someone who will help her evaluate if she wants to search for a new job or find solutions for the slump she is in with her current place of work. She wants to work with somebody who can understand her position with her clients and give her an empathetic approach. Maria loves what she does for a living and knows the importance of taking care of her mental health, so she can be the best for her patients. Maria wants to work with a career coach to discuss her options and start setting some long and short-term goals depending on what she wants to go moving forward with her career.

Goals

Discuss if and why she would want to stay at her job or start applying to others.
Have a better idea why she is feeling burnt out.
Start creating goals with a person that will help guide her through this time who isn't a family or friend and who can give a more professional point of view.

Frustrations

Feeling frustrated with her patients who exhibit apathy over their life and bettering themselves.
She is annoyed with herself for feeling these negative emotions about her work and that it is flowing over into her personal life.
Other career coaches that she has worked with don't have an understanding of her work life and healthy functional ways of coping with the stress that follows

Site Map

Task Flow

The user wants to book an appointment for a Free Consulation

Low Fidelity Wire Frames

High Fidelity Wire Frames

User Testing

Participants

4-6 Participants between the age of 28-69

Participants were male and female

Goals

Can the user complete the task efficiently
Were users able to navigate the site without major issues or concerns, if so learn what the issues are and where they are located on the site

Objectives

Understand if there are any errors that cause the user to not complete the task
Find inconsistencies with text, pictures, or general message of the purpose of the site and who it is for.

Prototype

Task

You need to book an appointment with Elizabeth on the 19th at 2pm

Figma Prototype

User Testing Summary

Testers felt that there could be more mentions of this being a site specifically for public health officials. Pictures had positive feedback and felt consistent with the message. The logo was described as professional, soft, and friendly. Improvements could be added to the prototype to enhance the feel of actually making an appointment.

The overall task flow was positive for the participants for finding the about page and then setting up an appointment with Elizabeth. Common feedback comments mentioned having public health officials be stated morethroughout the site to help get the message this is a career coach, specifically people who work in public health. Pictures had positive feedback that they were consistent with the message the site conveyed. Thelogo had enjoyable colors and was described as professional, soft, and friendly. Improvements could be added to the prototype to enhance the feel of actually making an appointment.

Iterations

For the original design the client felt unsure if the background was the vibe she wanted to present. I also felt the text was not easy to read with the background

The quote from the first design was not relevant to her site since Elizabeth wants to focus more on consulting than individual coaching. The message was rewritten to show Elizabeth’s work history and give the user confidence in her skills to help them.

As you scroll down the original design didn’t tell Elizabeth’s story and how she can give insight into an array of issues for the user.

The services were changed to the icons to help the user with knowing what the site has to offer. The first design services were not clear and confusing to the user.

The info about Elizabeth was separated in a vertical spacing to help the user’s eye not stretch across the screen to read.

The background was changed to show who Elizabeth is and give more of her personal background. A place to enter your email for a newsletter was also added along with a way to email her directly.

Conclusion

Elizabeth Mattfeld has worked as the Global Program Coordinator of the United Nations in Vienna over the past 15 years and has been wanting to transition into an online coaching business. Elizabeth wants to focus on leadership training and training public health officials with the knowledge she has gained in her position at the United Nations. When doing research I wanted to understand the need for career coaching only in the field of public health. With public health officials, I found that these individuals do need a level of care that Elizabeth could fulfill; however consulting would reach a broader range of professions and companies.

When it came to branding Elizabeth wanted dark purple theme pictures that showed her time working with individuals through her time traveling for work. I wanted to help convey the message of empathetic care and career accountability. I chose a light blue for the primary color to convey a calming trust and tied the dark purple in with the CTA's to catch the user's eye. Usability testing showed that Elizabeth's published papers were expected to be on the homepage. Iterations were made so the papers were easier to access and more information about Elizabeth's background was added.

Next Steps

For the following steps, Elizabeth wants to evaluate the site's text to convey better her message of what the site is for and how she can help the user. More testing will be done on the changes and understand any other additions, errors, or unclear areas. The end goal is to convert the design over to Squarespace. Calendly will be implemented into this stage to help book appointments quickly. Testing will be done after this to understand any problems in the task flow that can be adjusted.

More testing will be done on the changes and understand any other additions, errors, or unclear areas. The end goal is to convert the design over to Squarespace. Calendly will be implemented into this stage to help book appointments quickly. Testing will be done after this to understand any problems in the task flow that can be adjusted.