Renota Case Study

Part I

Before and After screenshots with my work process and decisions

Part II

The detailed case study. Please see below after Part I

Part I

Before and After

The Challenge

The existing copy throughout the website was useful, and the voice was friendly and charismatic with a punchy tone, but I understood the copy and buttons needed to be more clear, concise and actionable in order to better guide the user’s experience with the product.

The Solution

I clearly and honestly communicate what Renota is and what it can do for its audience while leaving room for positive curiosity and willingness to learn more.

How I Helped:

I edited existing copy for clarity and consistency

I crafted language that was conversational, friendly, relevant and educational (to speak directly to the targeted audience)

I thought about how to describe Renota clearly and simply. I considered the amount of clarity and simplicity needed. From collaborative discussion with Jake, I understood we wanted to guide the user toward curiosity, so I didn’t want to be super repetitive or detailed as I’d done in my first revision. Because Jake wanted to keep the cute and punchy hooks found under Our Impact and Our Reason, I just revised what was needed for clarity and a honed tone of voice.

Does the user understand what Renota is after reading or skimming the homepage? I was unsure. The focus on “AI” creates an opportunity for confusion or mental strain, thus creating hesitation to sign up for it. I saw an opportunity here for clearer copy while being consistent (or staying true) to the friendly voice and tone.
I added the “AI” information right after the homepage under Our Solution, because the AI component is what makes Renota different, unique– they’re doing something future-facing– it’s part of the company’s brand identity.

“Math teacher’s best friend” is lovely, but as the first sentence, it’s abstract, so I placed it as the last sentence.

The original “Try it for Free” had a few concerns
- “it” is vague and may cause hesitation from the lack of clarity
- “free” is not evergreen for the company

Renota has a goal to transition from free and add a pricing component. Thus, continuing to use “Free” can set a false expectation. With users, you want to set the right expectations to gain trust. Jake preferred to remove “free,” so we decided to revise the command and menu headline to, “Try Renota.” Short, clean and actionable. The word “try” is used, because the application was in its beginning stages, and the team was currently reaching out to schools via word of mouth to try out their product.

"Try" is friendly and low-stakes.

The tagline under the green headline was one of Renota's favorite additions. They enjoyed that it communicated exactly what Jake was telling me about: "Being approachable, but also modern and doing new things with tech."

The existing copy that gives a closer look at what Renota does, is good on its own, but it's a challenge to skim. I thought about the layout and created a bulleted list which allows the user to read easier and gain a clear understanding.

Plus, if the user were only to read Assign Work & Share Feedback and not the list, then they could still walk away understanding the main idea of the application/platform.

Less is more. I enjoy the challenge of finding a better, simpler way to say something.

"See where your students are struggling" felt long. I brainstormed a better word choice to get to this meaning quicker. "Pinpoint" is easier to read and cuts to the chase.

I understood Jake wanted to keep the cute, punchy taglines, but the existing tagline under Our Impact feels fragmented, and the user may miss it. "When teachers get help, students get helped." This is clear, concise... and cute!

I made other minor edits to add clarity and conciseness.

As you can see, the biggest change made here was the statistics.

The first statistic was unclear. I wasn’t sure what it was trying to say. I talked with Jake to understand his rationale and suggested to sort of "flip" the statistic in order to directly show that there is a problem - a pressing need for students to get help. I thought the existing copy needed to be more direct about the issue at hand.

Nothing is too small. Everything on the page is there for a reason. I questioned Jake about the use of the address. I realized it was important to keep, but not a priority. The user will mostly need the email, so we put that on the top.

List Hierarchy

Original Order: Address, Email, Social

Revised Order: Email, Social, Address

I revised this simple list in order of relevance and priority.

This is the Try Renota page that leads to the sign up form

I saw the existing copy as a potential user pain point. What if a user was excited about the product and wanted to try it sooner than later? Telling this user to join a waitlist may cause confusion, or even worse, lack of trust. What if they simply don't know what "waitlist" means and decide not to sign up? Words have the power to lead us.

I saw an opportunity to be more conversational with the user - be honest and transparent about the current situation of the start-up company. In my revision, I gave context, provided positivity and gave the user an action and an expectation.

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On the right side of the above screenshot, you also see Step 1. On the website, there's an arrow option to scroll through Steps 1 to 5. I made some minor edits for clarity and conciseness.

AFTER Copy for Step 1

STEP 1 – Teachers create an assignment and publish it to the class

See the continued steps 2-5 below.

as is

STEP 3 – Renota software reads every submission, marking correctness and highlighting mistakes

as is

STEP 5 – Students receive their marked assignment, a grade and additional feedback

The existing green headline was swapped with the revised homepage statement. For consistency.

I wanted to create positive language. I think "gets you" is positive and will help the user not feel discouraged or disappointed about being on a waitlist.

The third field was omitted. If some teachers teach multiple classes, it may be time consuming for the user to list all the class names. The user might also hesitate during the "Subjects Taught" field and change their mind about signing up altogether. Omitting the third field makes an easier sign up process.

Part II

Case Study Process

PROJECT: RENOTA

An Educational Technology Application with Artificial Intelligence Grading-Software. This easy-to-use app is geared for math teacher’s to give better feedback in a fraction of the time.

Project Details - June 2022 to July 2022

Renota’s (*in development) AI technology marks and highlights errors on student’s handwritten (submitted) assignments, allowing teachers to save time and focus on giving quality feedback.

Renota’s website had been published for about a month after I came to the team. I had an opportunity to make user experience improvements and improve existing copy for clarity, simplicity and tone of voice. I’ll talk about this in depth later.

Renota’s team understood user experience, but were not familiar with UX writing. After I told them about UX, they wanted to collaborate with me to optimize their copy. They were not ready for user testing, but I offered the idea to test copy to continue making a great user experience. The team was pro-user research and open to me sharing user flow maps I created with Miro.

I was in weekly, in-person communication with Founder and CEO of Renota: Jake Erichson.

*Renota is currently in development as a start-up company

MAIN GOALS:

Inform users about Renota
Drive excitement and stir curiosity
Guide users to sign up and try out Renota

TARGETED USER/AUDIENCE:

Collaborating with Renota, I understood that they wanted to be approachable and friendly, but also modern; doing something new and exciting with technology. These details allowed me to realize Renota’s audience and form revised copy accordingly.

Any math teacher across elementary, middle and high school
Schools districts, administrators, principals, and parents are also grouped in this audience

MY WORK PROCESS
- Research and Conversation Mining
- User Flow Maps

I began my UX journey for Renota by first understanding the product and the CEO’s goals for the website. Informing the audience, for me, means writing in a way that’s easily understandable for them. When they come to the website, do they understand the product, what it does and who it’s for? Can they easily skim the words on the page?

After an initial conversation that helped me identify context, I googled teacher forums and read math teacher chats and threads, picking up useful keywords. I wanted to empathize with the teaching community and put myself in their shoes, so the language I’d use would be meaningful, personalized and relevant. I understand the importance of being in conversation with the customer (cultivating a relationship), talking with them, and not at them.

From forums, I discovered that most teachers wanted to share resources (that had helped their classroom) with other teachers. A few other teacher’s were struggling and looking for insight on how to motivate their students, how to create more student engagement, how to get them to learn, etc. There was even mention of looking for “easy” and “not fancy” resources to help in their daily classroom experience.

I also researched educational platforms (that had grains of similarities) like Blackboard, Google Education, turnitin, the Grade Network, and other general start-up companies to gain insight, to see what they were doing or not doing, and form my own choices of what was needed or not needed. I picked up word choices and keywords to include in my first revision: “learner autonomy,” “educational technology,” “interactive,” “personal and relevant feedback,” to name a few.

Discover my user flow map here!

MENU TABS PROCESS

BEFORE - What we do, Try it out, Blog, Contact

The “before” menu titles had an opportunity to be optimized. It was inconsistent.

After looking at some websites I’ve listed in my research process, Jake and I agreed that the first menu option wasn’t needed.

AFTER - Try Renota, Explore Blog, Contact Us

I revised the 3 menu options to have consistency. Each noun has an action word in front of it, which helps add this consistency. At a glance, it looks clean, concise and actionable.

CALL TO ACTION PROCESS

BEFORE - Try it for Free, See a demo, Join the waitlist

The existing call to actions lack clarity and don’t prompt me with a clear, concise and positive action.

AFTER - Try Renota, Learn More, Sign Up for Early Access

Try Renota

"Try" is friendly and low-stakes. Plus, in the current stage of development Renota is in, “try” instead of “download or buy” makes more sense, so I kept “try” in the revised version too.

Learn More

This was a simple, yet effective way to tell the user they will learn more about the app by clicking “Learn More.” It’s a typical CTA, but it gets the job done and sets up the correct expectation.

The "sign up" command sets the expectation that they will go to a sign up form, and “early access” can let the user know in a positive way that it’s in development or just beginning. “Join the waitlist” just on its own can cause confusion or hesitation. A user may not want to join if they hear it’s a waitlist, so I revised the word choice for a more positive user experience.

Submit

Standard button; no changes needed.

Receiving Feedback

When I proposed my revision for a CTA on the website, Jake countered it. I was open to his thoughts and implemented the new feedback.

Existing Copy -

See how Renota can help you!

CTA - Teacher District Student Parent

Proposed Revision:

Are you a teacher, student, district or parent?

CTA – Sign Up Today!

For the last call to action button, I wanted the button to be simple. I didn’t want the user to have to think a whole lot about signing up. I thought combining the people groups into a question could help keep the interactive element. That way, I could just introduce one command with 3 words. Sign up today.

Jake had a different logic. For him, having individual buttons of either Teacher, District, Student, Parent gave a positive emphasis on the users. The audience can feel as if they are being spoken to directly, and each person can find themselves in the appropriate category.

My Decision

I agreed to Jake's idea.

Giving the user a task to read and identify with their own button can produce a positive result (sense of - community? connection? identity?). The buttons lead to the sign up page (as I proposed through the user map) and educate the user about who exactly this application is for.

With user testing, we could see more results and make revisions from there. Testing is to be announced.

WHAT I LEARNED

I learned so much during my time collaborating with Renota. My role was to help improve their copy while being mindful of the user experience.

I realized how important it is to understand as much as possible about the product and targeted audience first, because that context influences the decisions you make in your writing process and even changes the perspective.*

*In the beginning, I clearly understood Jake’s goals, but I actually didn’t ask enough questions to understand more about the audience. Until we had the next conversation, I wasn’t aware that administrators and principals were also grouped into the audience. A persona I had in mind was a mid-aged teacher who is looking for a helpful classroom resource, one that’s not fancy and as simple as possible because this persona is not good at learning new technology. After learning more about the audience, I learned this was actually not the persona I should be writing for.

I gained experience creating a user flow map to outline the website and follow the imaginary user’s journey.

I learned that it’s fruitful to explain your logic behind a decision or a feeling either to yourself or to the person you’re collaborating with. This open communication increases each other’s understanding and creates a healthy space to continue conversation. It also allows for better brainstorming and problem solving.

Client Recommendation

"I’m Jake, Founder & CEO of Renota, and I had an incredible experience working and collaborating with Christina Alexandru to enhance our website copy. Christina was exactly who we needed. She helped us understand the value of thoughtful language on our website and subsequently crafted clear and conversational copy for us to implement. Christina went above and beyond in truly understanding our business and our goals, enthusiastically refining her work to merge best practices in UX writing with our specific circumstances. Her communication, thoughtfulness, positivity, and flexibility made it an absolute pleasure working with her, all while she expertly rethought and reshaped how we engage with our audience. I cannot recommend Christina enough - anyone would be lucky to work with her." -Jake Erichson

client recommendation