Strategy
After developing an in-depth understanding of strengths, challenges, and opportunities, we conducted a comprehensive competitive analysis to provide an overall marketplace perspective as well as understand market “whitespace” – where the greatest opportunities existed for BBB Business Reviews.
We conducted online bulletin boards with consumers, having them explore specific business reviews across services, identifying likes, dislikes, and frustrations; we also studied how they prioritized information. Stakeholder interviews with businesses of all sizes across the U.S. and Canada provided insights into the value of becoming an accredited business, the positives and negatives of various review sites and their perceived business impact, and objections and perceived barriers.
Based on our key learnings and insights from the research, we developed a strategic approach that brought BBB goals and objectives together with the needs of identified target audiences (business and consumer). Wireframes illustrated page organization, priority of communication, user experience and user flows, and page interactions. To ensure an excellent, intuitive user experience, we conducted extensive usability testing and refined the wireframes based on our findings.
The user-tested wireframes provided the foundation for an innovative design that fulfilled BBB’s objectives yet still fit seamlessly into the structure of BBB websites, with a flexible framework that supports a variety of features and functions offered by some BBBs, including live chat, video, and image slideshows.