CONNOR RAY COX
UX/UI DESIGNER
The pandemic cost Nashville based artist, Ryan Storrs, his job. However, it provided him with the opportunity to pursue his lifelong passion; woodworking.
Ryan has an artist's eye and a mind for business, so he decided to invest all of his efforts into getting his woodworking business, Hondo Woodworking, off to the right start. Because he doesn't have web design, I was hired to help.
Create a user-centered responsive site to further develop the company brand in order to drive sales and increase customer acquisition.
I analyzed and identified direct and indirect competitors strengths and weaknesses, which allowed me to uncover which site elements were successful and which were problematic for users.
Keeping Ryan's business goal of increasing client acquisition in mind, I wanted to focus my competitive analysis on four main things...
I questioned how users navigate sites in order to purchase custom-curated home furnishings. This uncovered successes and frustrations.
The insights identified provisional personas and helped to uncover specific elements of navigation and correspondence that prove most valuable to new users.
I wanted to observe participants as they navigated the sites while verbally explaining their decisions.
I compared these findings with the findings from the interviews and developed the most common user needs, wants and pain points.
Using the preliminary stakeholder interview, the user research gathered, and the competitive analysis I created a user persona to better understand the user we were designing for. I was able to address Carly's wants, needs and frustrations giving us a persona to focus our design thinking on.
Questions that would help Carly hire Ryan. How might we...
After drafting the HMW questions and conducting a brainstorm session, I came up with solutions to solve the user's needs. I ran them past the stakeholder, Ryan, to be sure we were on course.
Ryan's primary focus was to increase client acquisition by enabling potential clients to hire him through multiple user flows. Webflow allowed me the opportunity to iterate while hosting the site, as well as provide Ryan the ability to adjust certain content elements as he worked to build product inventory and supply content imagery.
I created an ideal user flow for a potential client to follow as they navigate the site and hire Ryan's services. Efforts were focused on keeping the User Flow as simple and quick as possible allowing Carly to achieve her goal with as little effort as possible.
After establishing the common goal between users and the business as well as mapping out the ideal user flow, I was able to start to determine the features most important to include. Certain comments made during stakeholder/user interviews and trends found during the competitive analysis helped to brainstorm and prioritize features in order of their importance.
OBJECTIVE
USER GOAL
Using the previous ideation methods I created a very simple site map. The common thread throughout the map was to always allow the user the ability to jump to the contact page. Therefor the user and the business would benefit from initiating communication quickly.
Ryan is an artist so he had some input as to how he wanted the site to look/feel. It was an unforeseen challenge, but I adjusted my approach slightly by keeping it clean and focusing on the products.
As I started to put together iterations of low-fidelity wireframes, Ryan came to me and wanted high-quality photos he had produced to drive the site. One of my preliminary wireframe 'brainstorms' lended itself nicely to this unplanned client need.
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The low-fidelity wireframes would drive the site navigation in a very simple fashion, while having the ability to heavily showcase the photos and always providing the user with a means to contact the company directly.
Because the content imagery had to be prominent, I decided that the navigation elements would also need to take front-and-center. I used photographs from Ryan's photographer to assemble a brand style board to launch from.
Ryan had already invested time and money into his brand logo and did not wish to change the colors or the style. This was also an unforeseen challenge but luckily I was able to build the site to compliment the logo.
The research assembled alongside Ryan's initial artistic desires inspired the color palette. A rustic, earthy tone that was simple and direct.
User testing uncovered that a bright complementary color was needed on the buttons to help the user navigate the site. So I added a bright green complimentary color to help buttons and icons "Pop!"
I created a UI Kit as a reference guide for developers in order to avoid communication issues and limit questions regarding the styling of a particular design element. Because I constructed the site in Webflow I didn't feel developers would be necessary but I want to provide this in case Ryan wanted to go down the developer route in the future.
I implemented a scrolling feature that allowed each section to act as their own 'slide'. As the user scrolls, the next 'slide' would appear, moving the user down the page. However, every slide was unique but always allowed the user to reach the contact page which was the most important aspect of the site to the user and business.
I made sure that the imagery was bold and prominent while utilizing the color scheme and UI Kit developed to help draw attention to buttons and icons. This would help drive the navigation of the site.
White space help the products stand out, while sharp edges and straight lines featured within the product imagery would also help to guide the user. Light, refreshing, and soft while allowing the product to take center stage.
The contact screen provides users with a variety of options as to contacting the business directly. I felt that was important, because research showed that not everyone likes contact forms and some people are better at communicating their ideas over the phone or through social media. Regardless of the chosen method, the user always has the ability to reach Hondo directly through every 'slide'.
Sectioning the content to fill the screen as the user scrolls was essential to take the user on the journey of easily discovering what they came to the site to find. Mid-Fidelity Wireframes were used in prototype testing. The simplicity of the design allowed testing to go very well.
User research and insight from the stakeholder were the foundation for the project and steered its development. It was critical that the user had accessibility to get in touch with the company throughout the site. Usability testing proved this successful. Although, there is always room to refine the process even further.
I enjoyed the challenge of working directly with a single stakeholder who had an eye for composition and vision for the site. However, it was a bit of a challenge because of differing views between the stakeholder and the research conducted. But, after presenting my research findings effectively, Ryan saw that the research spoke for itself.
Ryan is an artist and wants to build inventory before moving forward and launching the site, so I gave him the ability to add content to the design without adjusting the format. I plan to stay onboard as a consultant as the company grows. I'm excited to launch the site and watch the business thrive.
