Company information
The Canadian Securities Institute (CSI)
is Canada's leading provider of professional credentials and compliance
solutions for the financial services industry, helping more than 700,000
financial professionals reach their career goals. It offers more than 120
courses.
Website: https://www.csi.ca/student/en_ca/home.xhtml
Identified Problem
- Common
complaints with respect to usability revolved around the difficulty experienced
by users in finding relevant information.
- Features
of the site most in need of improvement included: search functionality, design
(branding), and navigation, with an emphasis on making the site more
consumer-focused and intuitive to their user audiences.
- Overall
goals with respect to usability were to focus on reducing the abandonment rate
and providing users with numerous opportunities to find the course or
information they are looking for.
Approach
- Assessment
- Research
review, metric analysis & site evaluation – Key Findings and
Recommendations report
- Planning
- Developed
personas & logic flows
- Developed
IA , wireframes & a prototype site
- Conducted
usability testing & persona validation with 10 participants
- Modified
IA & wireframes
- Created
design concepts
- (12
week project)
-
Site re-launched in November 2008
Personas
- Three personas were defined:
- Persona 1: Looking for a Career in
Financial Services
- Persona 2: Current CSI Student
- Persona 3: Training Manager

|
- Debbie
is either referred to CSI.ca or she’ll Google the certificates she needs.
- Her
first visit she’ll explore.
- Her
second visit will probably be from a bookmark page – directly to the course
she’s interested in.
- She’ll
want to know time commitment and the exam process
|

|
- John
knows CSI. He is focused. He wants specific information. He has limited time.
- He
may want to expand the certificate and should be aware of what else he can
achieve
|
 |
- Mary
needs a broader knowledge.
- She
needs to be able to reference pages for the employees she assists. She needs
to have a good understanding of what is offered, when things change and what
is new – she subscribes.
|
CSI Homepage before
Outcome:
- The development of
personas, usability testing and validation revealed that Training Managers
act and search the same way an existing student does although they have a
broader mandate.
- Designs were developed,
approved and adopted readily.
- Client was satisfied with
results and reassured that a focused, realistic, user-centric approach was
taken and supported.
- Site launched November
2008.
Client feedback:
Working
with personas we reduced the number of clicks to purchase a course and improved
the purchasing process. Anecdotally we believe the abandonment rate has
declined 10-13%.``
Student comment:
``Just wanted to
compliment you on the great new website design. It is so much more convenient
to use. Thank you.`
CSI Homepage Redesign by Prescient

Persona 1: Debbie
Information important to Debbie is offered on the home page
with a `Find a course by`and maintaining the Top Courses so she can get a sense
of what others are doing. As well, there are `Resources`which include a link to
`New to CSI` which groups information specific for first time visitors like
Debbie.

Persona 2: John
John will probably login first and then view `My CSI` and he
will also be interested in Continuing Education to further his knowledge and
career.

Persona 3: Mary
Mary has a broader interest and is more like to thoroughly
explore the main navigation as well as utilize the resources. She will view the
news so that she can update any of her employees on key offerings.