
Rumis Passion Bakery provides gluten-free (GF), dairy-free (DF), and vegan (V) artisan baked goods and packaged foods in a dedicated facility
Kristina Rudolph | Web/Mobile UI Design & UX Research
Staci & Steve | Product Owners/Stakeholders
Duration | October 2018 – April 2019
Software | WordPress, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Roles | PM, UX Research, UI design, Front-End, Copywriter and Co-copy editor

Overview
Why / How / What
- WHY: Owners and staff experienced constant phone inquiries during business and non-business hours asking about product offerings, pricing, and directions.
- HOW: Qualitative ethnographic UX research, community and product owner interviews, competitive analysis of standard bakery sites, and a comparative analysis against the old website.
- WHAT: outcomes (below)
Outcomes
- Old website abandoned, new website raised product and brand awareness.
- Popularity necessitated products and new store expansion.
- The mobile-friendly app accurately worked with map/direction APIs.
- Menu offerings with prices decreased phone inquires by 40%.
- Sales maximized by 20%.
- Rumi’s moved to the #1 spot on Google‘s SEO for gluten-free.
- Call-ahead and pick-up orders were easy with COVID crisis


Store traffic and sales per purchase also increased.

Right: New site features increased accessibility for people with tremors from MS, autism, or limited mobility as part of the gluten-free community
Discoveries
- Product owners experienced high call volumes
- Owners and cashiers were stressed from split customer engagement creating low in-store satisfaction from phone interruptions
- New customers found it difficult to locate the store because of inaccurate google location data from the existing website
- Gluten-free, dairy-free, allergy-free, and vegan communities were unsure if this was a dedicated facility
- The old site forced people to wait for a reply using Facebook or the website’s online contact form
Original Layout & Flow
Old mobile UI

Old website UI
Initial Product Owner Meeting
The product owner was given a short survey to validate their potential desires and set a realistic direction for the minimum viable product (MVP).
The website and design were done in sprints. Each page was created then slowly refined as part of an iterative process, allowing the sites to remain live.


Research
The husband and wife team runs all logistical components of the business and bakery with only a few bakery and cashier staff. They wanted to double down and create a successful site to boost sales so they could hire more bakery and cashier staff.
The below pain points focus on product owner and visitor engagements as well as discoveries noted through ethnographic research.

Pain Points of focus
- Owners lacked time, resources, or knowledge to update, rebuild, or create a new website
- The existing site lacked good flow and there was no integration of APIs for mapping or directions, which caused potential customers to call the store when they became lost
- Customers were unaware of product line, services, and prices
- “Contact us” form slowed response times to online questions leading to a potential loss of sales, customer frustration, and wasted time and energy for the owners
- Owners lacked resources to hire additional staff or buy advanced tools such as phone systems or web chatbots
Personas / Interview / Observation
- Early-on in the prototype iterative phase, I was able to evaluate, strategize, and design, based loosely on the existing site as a benchmark.
- By A/B testing the main homepage changes were made accordingly
- Casually collected ethnographic interviews were done in the store.
- Heuristic observations were captured as customers spoke about the store and experiences together.
- In-store observations uncovered trends and opportunities for how to group menu offerings.
User Personas
Each persona was based on real customer needs within the GF, DF, and V communities.



Addressing pain points
- Directions with integrated map APIs were used
- Quality imagery of bread, cakes, and cookies were displayed within a new menu offering area which displayed prices
- A frequently asked questions (FAQ) page was added to address over-the-phone inquiries
- Facebook link addressed potential daily menu offerings changes
- Chosen hosting platform provides flexibility to add online ordering in a later sprint
- Owners were able to hire and pay additional staff with increased demand
- New platform offers flexibility for owners to have access for simple site updates
Additional product owner desires
- Information about the poet, Rumi, and how he inspired the owners to pursue their passion and mission was added
Design
Iterations were done in sprint cycles allowing for quick feedback from product owner with manual A/B testing.


New mobile UI

New website UI
Screenshots of Rumi’s Passion Bakery homepage with a simple and clean layout showing four links to; our story, directions, FAQs, and the artisan bakery items.




Wins
- Product owners were able to hire additional staff and open a larger storefront because of increased demand
- New and returning customers could easily set their expectations and options early, locating answers quickly and seeing offerings
- The positive response increased web traffic to the site through community chatter of the tight-knit communities which slowly spread to a much larger network


Ironically, with the COVID crises, phone orders for pick-up and carry-out orders rose but responses were faster and targeted with the website’s ability to empower consumers bringing in increased business and higher per-ticket transactions

The new site offered transparency to menu items and pricing for call-ahead ordering.
Beyond
The product owners doubled down with the creation of this website and extending their brand as a last-ditch strategy to make their business survive.
The response was widely successful necessitating the need to hire and train additional from the increased demand, obtain new digital cashier systems for easier and faster checkout, and move into and redesign a new building space for the store.
The community response, even during COVID, has proved very successful and the owner is thinking about developing a new growth stage to the MVP website to help cope with heightened demand and broadened outreach.
Infinite time/money/resources solutions
- Web chatbot for quick Q and A that doesn’t depend on FAQ reading
- Creation of an updatable phone system referencing changing daily store hours and offerings which addresses common questions
- Greater SEO outreach potential with a more advanced WordPress plan
- Integration of online ordering and pre-payment options for store pick-up or delivery.