Building the Client Relationship

Talk about the steps for how we got here. usability audit, Affinity diagram, whole site rebuild, etc.

1. Initial onboarding (after years of previous CRO we began the journey to redesigning the site, implementing many of the previous findings)
2. Usability audit to begin the project
3. Building the client relationship through CRO
4. Web Evolution, including
5. Building a more robust CRO program

• Analytics Review to identify site sections, typical flow through the site, and key opportunities.
• Updated business priorities to align test ideas with the rest of the business.
• Usability review/heuristic analysis to identify key usability gaps and improve ability to find content.
• Comparative analysis of direct competitors as well as indirect comparators in adjacent industries for inspiration.

Quarterly Roadmapping: Collective Brainstorming & Prioritization

To build our testing roadmaps, we typically seek input from various stakeholders to go along with our initial recommendations and create a more collaborative approach to testing that better takes into account business priorities and complements other Walden initiatives. To collect ideas, we run a quarterly discovery session, inclusive of: Workshops, stakeholder interviews, comparative, usability review, analytics, personalization and audience segmentation To prioritize ideas, we’ve tried many popular frameworks for these tests, (MSCW, PIE, Dot voting, Consensus-based decision making) and each one has shown their pros and cons. Ultimately, we’ve settled on impact versus effort scoring model for this particular project, since we needed a more formula-based approach that could be reused in subsequent quarters and since we’ve already assessed priority during our discovery presentation, our roadmap is usually only comprised of high and mid priority items. Impact is determined using an Excel based calculator with estimated impact for different test types, and changed quarterly, based on latest Analytics traffic. Effort is determine by the effort needed to develop the test idea, and is typically roughly estimated in days by the development team and can remain fixed between quarters.

Building Test Briefs & Providing Ongoing Consultation

Once we’ve got an approved roadmap for the quarter, we can begin planning each individual test. For routine test planning, we use a testing brief using PowerPoint to share with stakeholders. We include background and rationale to explain why we're testing, a sketch of the proposal to guide the design updates, and analytics data to visualize how big the audience is. Test Briefing preparing documentation for the entire team to collaborate on includes sketches, justification, inspiration, and analytics data (analytics is pulled with support of a team member) Ongoing Consultation work with the rest of the team to ensure they have everything they need to keep moving and ensure we launch tests on time. This requires working with project management to build an Agile timeline for all roles. Building Proofs of Concept in Optimize To support the rest of the team and ensure we're selecting the correct testing tool and timeline, we explore whether test ideas are feasible in Google Optimize before sending to a Sitecore dev to build, as Sitecore development takes longer and requires more resources. Additionally, as we're testing a new solution, we like to collect user data without fully building out the solution, so we don't sink the cost of building the full solution into the test without knowing it will win.

Paving the Path Forward: Interactive Roadmap and Results Repository

To create a more visible, accessible database of our testing results, a more easily navigable roadmap for stakeholder visibility, and a collaborative intake form for wider team input, we’ve begun work on an interactive roadmap and results repository. For our proof of concept, we’ve built our app using the Django CMS framework for dynamic content population, the Notion API for database management, Google Developer scripts for the timeline functionality, and an embedded Google Form that automatically uploads submissions to the testing backlog. Our proof of concept supports the following key user stories:

1. A member of the Walden team wants to see our latest test results to inspire future initiatives.
2. A member of the Walden team wants to suggest new ideas, and view the current backlog to ensure they’ve been added.
3. A member of the direct team wants to quickly share our upcoming initiatives with our stakeholders for buy-in
4. Any member of the direct CRO team can update the testing roadmap easily with basic knowledge of spreadsheet software and a short demonstration.