Roberta Scerri

The client

The Asiabet website was established in 2013, operating in 17 Asian countries and serves content available in 11 languages. The main USP is that no matter which Asian country you connect from, Asiabet is able to help you enhance your gaming experience. Be it finding your favorite online slots, place a bet at the best bookies, or simply having fun streaming through their games. Especially using your mobile device.

The challenge

Auditing the existing navigation and create a new, improved way of
moving across product’s offering and revamp the existing Blackjack page, creating a new fresh look & feel that can stand up to trending standards. The design needs to cater for seamless experience between desktop and mobile.

Analysing the information architecture of the website and map out a new user flow for the navigation, bringing together segmented information and making the journey as intuitive and holistic as possible.

Website & Competitor Analysis

Went through asiabet.org website to analyse the content and how it is structured – there is a lot of good content but is not very accessible for the user. There is also a lot of information on one page: one can link menu categories to different areas within the page or create a page for each category, which requires more work and upkeep, however it is very beneficial for SEO purposes and information is better structured and directly accessible. The current navigation provides little value to the user, as the user still needs to go through whole pages to understand how online gambling works, the choices he/she can make and the decisions to make

Competitor analysis resulted in: majority of competitor websites do not have a very good design, with clunky, cluttered or too much information which is hard to access. Flashy images are used, with lack of white space in many cases. On the other hand, competitor navigation is more detailed, presenting a flatter information architecture and hierarchy, which is better when navigating websites. Majority are heavily text-based with not much contrast between sections. 

Possible Personas

Vanessa:
Genuinely interested in betting online. Completely new to gambling, has little or no idea how it works and needs to know what she can bet on, how it is played and how she can start. 

Paul:
Interested in gambling, but quite suspicious, needs to know the websites that can be trusted and to know regulations and read trusted reviews before taking action. Takes his time to search and is ready to look at other sources. 

John:
Has gambled before, but is looking for new gambling opportunities and maybe a good Bonus to go with that. If he does not find anything interesting or a good deal quick, he will quickly switch to another site. 

A. Navigation

Navigation: Aims

• Researched other gaming bookies and portals to understand grouping and categorisation of information
• The goal for a menu, as the Nielsen Norman Group states, is for people to “rely on recognition rather than recall,” so menus need to be short enough to scan, but long enough to be clear.
• The user needs to know where to start and what actions to take, that is why CTAs have been placed in the relevant areas: clearer actions to take = higher chance of conversion
• It might be ideal to load the website content based on the geolocation of the user to reduce loading time and clicks
• Mapped out the flow of the current navigation and updated it (see image below)
• Past research conducted for another project showed that the simpler the menus (no extra imagery or embellishment) works best, does not deter or confuse the user from taking action
• It would be ideal for the footer to reflect the same navigation categories as the Main Menu so that the user can use it as secondary navigation with quick links 

Navigation: Potential Results

• All users have a direct, visible starting point to take action and start gambling (conversion)
• Users matching Vanessa’s persona can find all the required information needed under one tab (Customer Support) and have all the available sections laid out as Main Menu Categories – all information is directly accessible from there. Navigation is intuitive: the Guides are also placed in the relevant category of interest.
• Users matching Paul’s persona can access all reviews, blacklisted and recommended sites and regulations and terms with just 2 clicks, and can also view Why they should choose and trust asiabet.org
• Users matching John’s persona can find what they need quickly – all the available betting options are clearly laid out in the menu and they can access all the games in their area of interest with just a couple of clicks. The Bonus category is clear and the CTA to get their Bonus and the Best Bonus Offers both encourage them to take action and not navigate to other websites.  

B. Blackjack Landing Page

Landing Page: Analysis & Requirements

• Brand fonts, style and colours were taken note of
• Current page has a lot of valuable information but is not structured
• Current page does not provide starting point nor direction to the user. It does not motivate the user to take action
• A good portion of the page is mostly text, without much actions for the user to take, and therefore convert
• The design changes very little throughout the page, with barely any highlights, making it easy for the user to miss out on important content and instead go to competitors’ sites
• A quick user test with family members who are new to online betting resulted in poor recall of any of the information or best online casinos, and confusion as to how it works 

Landing Page: Potential Results  

• As soon as the users land on the page they know what actions are available to them
• Links above the fold take the users to the relevant section of the page – The first CTA for conversion appears above the fold
• The format of the Best Online Casino Cards element was changed to give more prominence to each Casino, and stacked information is easier on the eyes. The Play Now button is now also more prominent, backed up by social proof in the form of reviews and stars. The ComeOn review was changed to a link to leave the focus on the main CTA
• The more prominent section ‘How We Rate Best Casinos’ serves as good motivator for users to choose Asiabet
• As the user goes through the page there are CTAs which motivate action
• Footer provides easy navigation through the pages
• The ‘Other Online Casino Games’ section has been introduced for users who did not like Blackjack and want to check out other Online Casino games, or liked Blackjack and want to try others. This provides potential conversion for other games and areas 

Proposed further research and work 

• Discuss with client the pain points uncovered by customer care and how the website can address them, reducing customer care load and resulting in more satisfied customers
• If GA has been plugged in the current website, analyse and export reports so that decision-making is also data-driven. If not, plug in GA to stat collecting data from the present and identify user behaviour patterns which could be compared and contrasted with those of future website
• Set up user testing workshop with defined tasks with a good sample of users representing the typical personas as per Asiabet audience so that difficulties and opportunities are identified
• Address Website information architecture needs: discover the most used tools and actions, user test current navigation and build upon it