PwC Academy & Careers

PwC Academy & Careers

Improving business metrics while enhancing user experience

Basic project info

I applied UCD principles to PwC Czech Republic long-term projects of The Academy and Careers. This resulted in undesired career inquiries dropping by 70%, and Academy direct mailing CTR raising by 20%.

My role UX Lead, Front-End Developer
Platform Responsive website
Industry Consulting, E-commerce
Period Jan 2015 - Aug 2015
Contract Part-time contractor (Feb 2013 - Jan 2015)

Background

PwC is  a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 223,000 employees providing services in assurance, advisory and tax. Vault Accounting 50 has ranked PwC as the most prestigious accounting firm in the world for seven consecutive years, as well as the top firm to work for in North America for three consecutive years.

PwC Czech Republic operates on the Czech market since 1990, employs more than 1,000 people and has been rated among top employers for students in the Czech Republic.

The Challenge

The Academy

The Academy was an ongoing project during the time I was working for PwC. The Academy’s registration system was not flexible enough to cater for user needs – course registration was painful and unreliable and it was not mobile friendly. Conversion rates, especially for direct mailing were also sub-optimal.

The Academy - Sub-optimal homepage

Careers

Careers micro-site provides information for prospective employees (students, graduates, and professionals), and for a long time was underperforming – causing an overhaul of inbound calls from applicants who could not understand the process and were seeking additional information.

Careers - Sub-optimal homepage

The Team & My Role

I worked part-time for PwC for nearly six years in total – during my studies and later as a contractor. I started as a webmaster and web designer, including front-end development and UI design but I gradually became involved in UX design and copywriting.

In The Academy and Careers projects, I cooperated closely with senior management, business development, and a marketing department.

Target Audience

The Academy

Finance and HR professionals seeking further education, career change or career development.

Careers

Students, graduates, and professionals looking for career development or a career change in a world-leading advisory firm.

Process, methods & tools

Both projects involved:

  • stakeholder interviews
  • website stats and search log analysis
  • customer feedback analysis
  • competitor analysis
  • iterative prototyping
  • development of the final solution
  • mobile and SEO optimisation

The projects did not allow for a standard HCI user testing, so I had to be inventive and use guerilla techniques to get feedback on proposed solutions. We also gathered feedback from users through standard company channels once the new solutions were deployed.

Tools used

Development

  • HTML, CSS, JS, JQuery, AJAX
  • RSS
  • WordPress
  • Documentum CMS

UX & UI

  • Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
  • Pencil and paper

Solution

The Academy

  • A mobile optimised site
  • New homepage layout
  • New course calendar layout and improved registration flow
  • New flow and layout of direct email offers

New course filtering and layout
New course filtering and layout
The Academy homepage: Focus on primary tasks and coherent experience
The Academy homepage: Focus on primary tasks and coherent experience

Careers

  • A mobile optimised site
  • New homepage layout
  • Redesigned target audience segmentation
  • Specific user journeys for each segment

Students landing page: Focus on primary tasks
Students landing page: Focus on primary tasks
Careers homepage: Focus on primary tasks and coherent experience

Impact

The Academy

  • Easier navigation
  • Improved SEO - traffic rose by 57%
  • Direct mailing - CTR rose by 20%

Careers

  • Unwanted telephone and email inquiries dropped by 70%
  • User complaints on chaotic web arrangement stopped appearing
  • Users commented on the new site as "well-arranged", "easy to navigate", "quickly found what I needed"