Designing for Conversion: Site Redesign

The client reached out to me with three goals in mind:

1. A brand new responsive business site
- Single page scroll
- Built off of Webflow by their devs
- Mobile-centric focus

2. Creating clear CTAs for this site to drive conversion

3. Launch date of December 2023
- Total of 8 months to research, design, code, test, and launch

As simple as it sounded, I knew that I needed more information. I came back to them with an updated propsal, organized into 3 main phases to maintain expectation, as I was worked as the solo designer:

PHASE 1 // UX DESIGN

PHASE 2 // CONCEPT CREATION

PHASE 3 // VISUAL DESIGN + HANDOFF

With a tight startup budget, I knew that I needed to create a focused and efficient gameplan to deliver maximum impact within their constraints.

Phase 1 — UX Design

EXISTING SITE AUDIT

The audit was pretty straight forward, since their online branding was very premature. Most of their customers were found by word of mouth / referrals. They were lucky to have targeted some high-profile livestreamers that worked together with them and gave more credibility for their brand. I wrote an intensive document that noted the areas that could be improved upon, and how we could address it.

MARKET RESEARCH

When it came to market research, I wanted to make sure to hit not just direct competitors but also those who were less similar and doing things that vaguely correlated to the same core concept that Copium Merch had. This allowed me to broaden my scope and think about solutions more unique and outside of the box when it would come to design. The research was then presented to their team, and we worked together on an prioritization matrix to decide what the key focus for their site would be.

Reviewing direct competitors, sites that users commonly access, and other indirect competition

Phase 2 — Concept Creation

VISUAL THEMING EXPLORATION

After all the initial research, we had a few back and forths on the brand concept. I would share some rough ideas with their team, and we'd discuss what they liked and disliked from those shared to finally come together on this iteration (City of Wonder) that was created by picking the elements they liked of both the creative concepts I presented.

ROUGH CONCEPT PROTOTYPING

Due to the tight timeline, I knew I wanted to test out some roughly fleshed overall concepts with splashes of color early on, so the team could really envision themselves in the new environment we were trying to create. While not my favorite way of working, I've learned to adapt my process to what works best for the client and their needs. This is something that I learned works well with premature startups - fail fast and pivot as needed. Below shows the two initial concepts tested with the client to gauge their appetite on both the interactions and brand tone chosen.

Phase 3 — Visual Design

COLLABORATION WITH DEVELOPMENT

The early integration of color trials during concept creation streamlined the rest of the design process. This phase involved close collaboration with the development team to align our design dreams to Webflow's technical capabilities.

Given their team's relative newness to the platform, a strategic decision was made regarding the initial parallax side-scrolling concept, which we determined would impact the project timeline. By adapting to a more traditional top-down scroll, we ensured timely delivery and allowed for crucial site stress-testing before launch.

CONCLUSION

From the start, I knew this would be a challenge - their initial content was a cry for help, so I would be stepping into a role of not just a designer, but also a content strategist. The timeline put even more shackles on what could be done, and I do believe that with more time and a bigger team - we definitely could have done an even larger shift.

Overall, the site had a big impact in translating to new conversions from all the added CTA's to the site, and it was defined as a success with the client's team.

SNIPPET OF THE COMPONENT LIBRARY CREATED FOR THIS PROJECT

INITIAL CREATIVE CONCEPTS

TALK TO ME

→ helveticathy@gmail.com

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