USABILITY TESTING · WEBSITE REDESIGN

Usability and redesign for a Kenyan tourism platform

Naks Yetu wanted visitors to discover Nakuru. We watched seven people try to do that on their website and fixed the major problems.

ROLE: UX Researcher & Designer
TEAM: 3 researchers
TIMELINE: 12 weeks
OUTPUT: Usability findings & redesign direction

THE PROBLEM

Would you plan a trip to a place you couldn't get a feel for?

Naks Yetu is meant to be the one place to plan a trip to Nakuru County, Kenya. We ran moderated usability testing with seven people looking for their next trip, and they scored it 57%.

All participants got stuck registering for an event, 86% could not tell what the site was for, and the activity pages had no prices, no times, and no way to act.

“This is exactly what I wanted… I just didn’t know where it was.”

“It says bucket list, events… is this a travel agency or just a place to get ideas?”

“I think this is some sort of a resort… or travel agency.”

“So I just email and hope it works?”

“I was expecting something like Eventbrite… but here I have to email someone.”

“How to book it? I’m not able to find that out.”

AN OPPORTUNITY IN WHAT WAS ALREADY THERE

Homepage areas where we identified problems — Homepage: where we identified problems

Bucket list page areas where we identified problems — Bucket list: where we identified problems

Videos page area where we identified problems — Videos: where we identified problems

Every page stopped one step short.

The bones of the platform were there, with pages for activities, events, and submissions, but each one stopped just before the piece a visitor needed, whether that was a price, a duration, or a way to register. The opportunity was to finish what was already built rather than start over.

THE SOLUTION

Naks Yetu redesign

We redesigned five pages around what testing showed was missing.

This is what it looked like:

(Yes, there are some placeholder videos in the hero sections for Naks Yetu to update themselves.)

Open the prototype

HOW WE GOT IT DONE

The issues found and the recommendations to fix them

Drag the slider on each one to see what changed and why. These are proposals, built to give the team a direction they could act on rather than a list of fixes.

Issue: 86% couldn't say what the site was for, or what Nakuru even is.

Recommendation: Lead with Nakuru itself and put real visitor content on the page.

Naks Yetu homepage before the redesign, annotated with the usability problems found

Naks Yetu homepage redesign, annotated with the recommendations

Issue: A Bucket List page that promised stays and delivered something else.

Recommendation: Rename it for what's there and make every card a real way in.

The Bucket List page before the redesign, annotated with the usability problems found

The redesigned activities page, annotated with the recommendations

Issue: 100% asked how to book, and nothing on the page answered.

Recommendation: Cost, duration, and location up front, with a way to act on it.

An activity page before the redesign, annotated with the usability problems found

The redesigned activity detail page, annotated with the recommendations

Issue: Media promised visitor content and delivered the team's own videos.

Recommendation: Lead with trips people actually took, official videos underneath.

The videos page before the redesign, annotated with the usability problems found

The redesigned video hub, annotated with the recommendations

Issue: Event details locked inside a poster, registration off-site.

Recommendation: A real event page with the details pulled out and the RSVP built in.

The blog-based event page before the redesign, annotated with the usability problems found

The redesigned event booking page, annotated with the recommendations

MY ROLE WITHIN THE TEAM

Session scripts, the usability testing report, and the event creation screen — Session scripts, the testing report, and the screens we ran people through

Hands in every stage, from the interview scripts to the screens.

I helped draft the testing scenarios, tasks, and session scripts, ran two interviews myself, and worked the data into patterns with the team. The redesigns were shared. Mine were the Media page and the event submission flow for local organizers, with feedback across the rest.

WHAT I DIDN'T ACCOUNT FOR ¯\(ツ)/¯

The live site we had to troubleshoot before each session

The website itself barely worked, and testing it was the hard part.

The unexpected part was not the research plan, it was the site. Pages broke in ways we did not predict, so before any participant got a task we had to troubleshoot each page ourselves, making sure every step could actually be completed before someone sat down to try it.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS EXPERIENCE

Final Zoom meeting with the Naks Yetu team — Final meeting with the Naks Yetu team

The next step is strategy.

The recommendations given to Naks Yetu team point to a clear place to start. What would move them furthest now is a strategy for how the platform grows: what it is for, who it serves first, and how new pages get added without pulling the site apart again.

That is the piece I would want to work on next.

¡Gracias!