​User Experience and Strategic Website Design
This page explores how user-centric design supports digital marketing objectives. During this clinic, I created buyer personas, mapped customer journeys and used AI tools for wireframing and prototyping. I also applied card sorting to inform intuitive site structure. Key marketing principles like price framing, information hierarchy, and anchoring were embedded throughout to ensure every decision was strategically aligned with user behaviour and conversion goals.
Building a Buyer Persona for Strategic UX Design
This persona forms the foundation of a user centered surf holiday website. It captures key behaviors, motivations and frustrations that influence decision making online.
Insights such as the need for transparent pricing, group travel options and mobile accessibility directly shaped layout choices, call to actions and tone of voice.
Channel preferences and browsing habits guided platform targeting and supported the decision to prioritise mobile first design.
Overall, the process ensured that every stage of the user journey aligned with real expectations, helping to create a more intuitive and effective experience.
Mapping the Customer Journey
This customer journey map follows a solo student traveller planning a surf holiday. It covers the full path from awareness to action, highlighting key goals, emotional responses and digital behaviours.
Emotions shift throughout the process, starting with excitement, dropping during research due to confusion, then rising again at the point of booking. These insights informed design choices focused on clarity, trust and ease of use.
Digital touchpoints such as TikTok, Instagram and Google were prioritised, while WhatsApp and email reflected a need for reassurance. This helped ensure the website met real expectations and supported confident decision making.
Wireframing and Early Layout Design
This section focuses on the initial layout stage, where I used wireframes to apply key principles such as information hierarchy, clear website objectives and user centred structure. The design was shaped around predictable scanlines to guide attention and support a smooth, goal driven experience.
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Get to Know Us
This section explores the early stages of designing a user focused website layout. Using AI powered wireframing tools, I built out the core structure of a surf holiday site, shaped by the buyer persona and journey map.
The wireframes prioritised information hierarchy, mobile accessibility and clear user flow. Elements such as call to action buttons, visual storytelling and simplified navigation were guided by marketing goals like engagement and conversion.
​The aim was to create a layout that met user expectations while supporting business objectives. By using wireframes, I was able to test ideas quickly and make design decisions based on structure before moving into visuals.
Card Sorting for Navigation and Content Structure
This section shows how I used card sorting to organise website content in a way that reflects user expectations. The activity helped shape a navigation system that is simple, logical and focused on user goals.
Open Card Sorting
Open card sorting allowed users to freely group content and label categories themselves. This helped uncover how people actually think about browsing holiday options, without being influenced by preset categories.
Reflection
Clinic One provided a valuable foundation in understanding the significance of persona development and customer journey mapping in digital marketing. The session focused on the practical application of theory, allowing me to explore how businesses can use data and customer insight to build clear audience personas and tailor marketing activity to meet their specific needs and behaviors. Creating a persona felt like bringing a target customer to life and I enjoyed considering how different variables such as lifestyle, values and digital habits could influence each step of their interaction with a brand.
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One of the most useful aspects was learning to visualize the full customer journey, from awareness to post-purchase engagement. This allowed me to think critically about the content, channels and messaging that are most appropriate at each stage. Understanding how customers experience a brand through different touchpoints has changed the way I approach campaign planning. Rather than thinking about single channels in isolation, I now consider how every element contributes to an overall user experience.
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This session will definitely support my future employment in digital marketing roles, particularly those focused on campaign planning, customer experience or digital strategy. Being able to show that I can not only build accurate customer personas but also design touchpoint-specific content that moves users through a journey gives me an advantage. I also gained confidence in applying strategic frameworks that I know employers value when developing customer centric campaigns.
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What I enjoyed most was the creativity involved in building a persona. It was a chance to blend research, empathy and marketing insight. I found the mapping process slightly challenging at first, especially in identifying the most relevant channels and emotions for each stage, but the group work and visual tools helped make it clearer.
Going forward, I plan to apply these skills to all projects where I need to define a target audience. I now appreciate how vital it is to make marketing decisions based on user motivations rather than assumptions. These insights are highly transferable and relevant to various job roles including content strategist, digital planner, CRM executive and brand executive. Clinic One was an excellent starting point for understanding the customer mindset and building campaigns that truly resonate with people.