Scout and Zoe's Redesign

Role & Duration

Creative Technologist | BaM

Research, Information Architecture, Ecommerce, Testing

Jul 2019 - Jan 2020

Overview

Scout and Zoe’s is a local dog treats business which needed help growing their ecommerce business. Their site was dated with broken links and slow load times.</p><p>Scout & Zoe's contracted us to modernize their site in order to reduce load times, improve functionality and make it responsive for all users, while ensuring the business was able to quickly receive orders and prepare a delivery.

I worked with the team to create digital branding, UX patterns, and an intuitive user interface for the clients dated site and implemented a new ecommerce back-end that streamlined the process for the business.

Challenge

Scout and Zoe's is a small dog treats business trying to find ways to improve online sales. How can we drive more business to the website and stream line the ordering process.

Project Details

“I never have time for my retail site.”

While many aspects of Scout and Zoe’s was thriving the B2C website had never been a focus for the business. The website was created in 2010 and stayed as is with little to no updates or maintenance. After doing a site audit we found it was not responsive, had slow page load speeds, a confusing navigation and checkout system, and had several broken links.

As a small business owner the budget was small. We wanted to provide a website that allowed Scout and Zoe’s to manage as much of their own content as feasibly possible and to minimize any website maintenance requiring further assistance.

During our discovery process I conducted research to better understand the industry and the users.

Research Goals

What does an ecommerce site need in order to provide a user-friendly experience?
How do we provide a site that can be managed by the client?
What obstacles (if any) prevent people from ordering dog treats online?
How do we encourage users to shop for their treats at Scout & Zoe's?

Conclusions

Users expect shopping to be easy when visiting a ecommerce site. We could simplify the experience by showing popular, new, and featured products on the home page and structuring site navigation to reduce cognitive load.
Modern ecommerce platforms have a list of features that would allow the client to manage their inventory and orders. Using a template on the platform would quickly allow us to relaunch the site without extra time for a custom design.
Large retail sites can build the cost of shipping into their business plan and users have become accustomed to low shipping fees at checkout. Shipments of a certain amount should be free leading to more items being purchased.
Many of the client's pursuits are community improvement efforts. Telling the story of how Scout & Zoe's makes their world a better place may give an incentive to make purchases.

Problems to solve

Modern site design
User-centered Site Structure
Ecommerce Platform
Updated & Uniform Imagery

My Role

Discover

Competitive Analysis
Audience Discovery
User Scenarios

Concepting

User Stories
Sitemap

Prototyping

Responsive Design
User Testing
Presentation

Development

Site Audit & Analysis
Ecommerce Implementation
Content Integration & Validation

Discovery

During the initial review of Scout and Zoe’s we had a chance to investigate the analytics from the last 10 years and discovered a significant bounce-rate before visitors even reached the products. We discovered customers were driven away issues throughout the site like slow page-speed scores, poor and inconsistent image quality, and broken links.
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Categories and subcategories were disorganized and confusing. Finding products required clicking through multiple links. While products, sales and branding focused on dog treats, top-level categories were separated by type of animal placing an emphasis on limited and unpopular categories. The checkout page was a custom built order form. Users sending orders was complicated and insecure. Additionally, the site had no product quantities, and orders for out of stock items required a refund and an apology.

Page Speed Results

Page Speed Competitor Benchmarks

We knew we wanted to simplify the shopping experience, so I focused on reducing the number of clicks to find products. I sent a card sorting exercise to a sample of the user demographic with various types of products found on the site and filtered the results into categories. A sitemap was created from the business goals, the determined categories from the card sort, and user feedback.

In order to keep down costs an ecommerce platform was implemented reducing the need for additional time and staffing for site creation and maintenance. I hand-picked template designs that would focus on allowing the users to quickly find the products, and included a featured section on the home page.

I prepared the site by customizing the template, uploading images and content, and connecting social media, shipping and payment gateway information. Imagery on the site was updated to match the feel of a modern site for its industry including new photos with higher quality images that were consistent in style and feel.

User Research - Card Sorting

Sitemap

The Challenges

Large Competitors

There are many larger online brands in the market that gain a lot of attention. With a small brand we knew we needed to find ways to garner attention and improve sales from new and existing clients.

Solution

During our discovery phase we concepted social media ideas that would create a buzz around the business and the new site. At launch several social media posts matching the new voice and branding were sent out to the major platforms.

Raising the search score

After the site was launched we needed to discover ways to improve the sites SEO score. The client was passionate about pets with allergies and had built her business on providing them with healthy, allergy-free treats.

Solution

Several blog posts were released with key terms to help the site reach more people searching for dogs with allergies, and healthy choices for their pets.

The rotating header

While searching for a template we knew the site was going to have several pieces of information in the header that would be a focus for the user. I knew that carousel headers had a significant drop off in click-throughs for each consecutive tab, and sought a header with an alternative style.

Solution

I presented a sectioned header that would allow 3 or more pieces of information to live together in the header. I was eventually overruled by executive members of the team, but I stand by my choice and believe it would have an improvement.

The Work

Heart metric

updated Product Categories

Site Prior to Redesign

Redesigned site

Results

Usability improvements came from user defined categories and reduced clicks. The new site made shopping the priority with new product imagery, improved page speeds, a single-page secure checkout and a fully responsive mobile-friendly site.

The ecommerce platform gave the site a smoother experience and improved validation. Product inventory management was added to the website providing visibility to the client. Additionally, users were also able to see when product was low or out of stock reducing refunds and frustration.

This was a very positive project where I owned the UX Designer role. I got a chance to handle user research and made sure my voice was heard with my team and the client. This was one of the final projects I worked on at BaM before the pandemic, and it was a great opportunity to interact with my coworkers in a role I was passionate about.

Scout and Zoe's Website

Project Details

The Challenges

The Work

Results

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