Test the Prototype!
The Client
Signcraft was established in 1980 by a hard working man named John Prehn with a paint brush and a passion for handmade fine art. Forty years later the company sells a variety of signage, including gorgeous monument signs and custom sand blasted house address signs.
The Challenge
The new owner wants to update the website in order to be simpler and easier to place requests for quotes while also appeal to new customers and showcase the wide selection of sign products.
The Outcome
A usable and aesthetically appealing online platform.
Length of Project: 1 week
Role: Lead UX Designer (research, interaction design, visual design)
Research Goals:
Define users’ motivations, needs, and pains when seeking new signage and while browsing the website.
Understand what makes a customer’s sign shopping experience satisfying.
Understand industry and local standards and what features/services/offerings give local companies a competitive edge with signage specifically in Annapolis, Maryland.
Identify areas of improvement for the website.
Secondary Research - Market Research
To start, I conducted secondary research to familiarize myself with the local downtown Annapolis area and the influence the location had on the style and design of signs there. I collected information from the history and case studies on the historical trends, challenges, and areas for growth and innovation to identify industry standards and user expectations.
Secondary Research - Competitive Analysis
To build off my secondary research, I analyzed some of Signcraft's competitors in the sign industry. I uncovered the strengths and weaknesses of the business's direct competitors. In addition, I performed a competitive analysis on nationally leading sign companies and what they did differently to achieve far reaching audiences and professional status.
Findings
IThere are usual several main pages on each of the sites: Home, About, Quote, Contact, Gallery, and sometimes Services and Blog.
All of the competitor companies have clean simple websites. Signcraft will need a well designed website with high quality photos and active social media to be competitive in Annapolis.
Brand identity goes a long way in separating small sign shops that sell similar things. FASTSIGNS and Signs by Tomorrow have similar products but both have reputations for being more corporate with lower prices. Brand identity and the user experience of feeling like a friend or neighbor with Signcraft will be crucial to the revamp and also ensure the customers are seeking quality over affordability.
Personas
I created personas to get a sense of the general demographic which helped me think about how the business would appeal to different local people with varying needs.
Information Architecture
I then wrote down point of view (POV) needs the customers may have and how might me we (HMW) questions to help meet those needs.
Point of View Statements & How Might We Questions:
After wrapping up primary research, I dug deeper into the insights and needs I had generated. First, I restructured insights into POV statements, an actionable problem statement that defines the design challenge. Next, I restructured those POV statements into How Might We questions that would generate solution-oriented brainstorming.
I brainstormed as many solutions as possible to the HMW questions.
Customers need to know that Signcraft sells the high quality products they are looking for.
Customers to navigate seamlessly and efficiently to find that Signcraft sells what they need.
Customers need a pleasant engagement with the company and sometimes its employees.
I created a high-level list of site features to further define and guide the vision for the product. Prioritizing the features with supporting research created a clear order of execution.
Now that I had empathized with target users and identified their needs, I needed to define the solution. I reflected on the business goals, user goals, and technical considerations to find a happy medium for all stakeholders. Once I had identified common areas, I could decide what product features were necessary for the prototype.
Based on the research and graphs, I created a site map which lays out the structure and organization of the content on the site.
Based on the research and graphs, I created a site map which lays out the structure and organization of the content on the site.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Before starting the actual process of designing, I begin with sketches of the pages of the website. This is the part of the process, where I construct the layout and how the content could be structured to satisfy user and business goals in the most visually pleasing and suggestive way.
