Kristina Rudolph | Freelance contract work
Duration | October 2018 – April 2019
Software | WordPress, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Roles | PM, UX research, UI design, copywriter and co-copy editor
Client
Rumi’s Passion Bakery is a gluten-free (GF) artisan bakery. They requested a clean and simple, web and mobile-friendly site.
Challenges
Product owners experienced high volume phone inquiries during their business hours asking about product offerings, pricing, and directions. This caused stress to the owners and cashiers because it split customer engagement for potential new customers through phone conversations as well as in-store patrons ready to purchase
Original Mobile Layout & Flow
Original Web Layout & Flow
Initial Product Owner Meeting
Survey, follow-up questions and original concept sketches with the product owner are below. The website and design were done using sprints. Each page was created then slowly refined as part of an iterative process to allow the web site to remain live.
Research
Product Owner Pain Points
- Rumi’s passion bakery is run by a husband and wife team with a few part-time cashiers and a part-time cake decorator.
- The bakery offers fresh gluten-free artisan products, which require daily baking, resulting in constant product turn-over and preparation.
- The husband and wife team is responsible for running all logistic components of the business and storefront.
- The owners lacked the time and knowledge to update, rebuild, or create a new website.
- The existing site did not answer frequently asked questions from potential new customers.
- The site did not provide accurate directions or access to maps so new potential customers frequently called because they were lost.
- The site did not show products offerings or prices so new and returning customers would call frequently to ask about prices.
- Customers were unaware of the full Rumi’s Passion product line and the services available to them.
- The old site had a “contact us” form which required the owners to respond to provide answers. Slow response times to email inquiries resulting in the potential loss of customers and frustration.
- The existing site lacked the ability to properly pay for product offerings.
- The limited resources on the site resulted in users calling the store. This generated frequent phone disturbances during open hours and impeded proper customer service and check-out experiences.
- Frequent call interruptions resulted in stress for the product owners and their cashiers.
- They lacked the ability to hire additional help.
- They lacked the money to pay for phone systems or online chatbots, which could answer frequently asked questions.
User Personas
User Pain Points
- The ability for new visitors to find the location of the store and seamlessly link to their map app (such as Google or Waze) with a correct location.
- The lag time it takes to hear back from the owners with questions posted to the Facebook page or the existing web site’s contact form.
- The lag time it takes to hear back from an answering machine message when the shop is too busy or closed and the phone cannot be answered.
Requests
Product Owner Desires
- Welcome page with Rumi’s Passion mission and purpose
- Information about the poet, Rumi, and how he inspired the owners to pursue their passion
- Accurate directions and map
- Images of bread, cakes, cookies, and pies
- A frequently asked questions page
- A link to Facebook and social networking for community involvement and the newest daily menu offerings
- The ability to potentially grow the site later to add a blog
- The ability to choose a flexible platform the could be added to later (potentially for online sales)
- The ability of the owners to have access for simple site updates
Customer Desires
- Storefront address containing an integrated map, which can be clicked upon for integration with direction mapping apps on mobile devices or to allow for printed directions from the website
- A complete menu of bread, cakes, cookies, pie, and foods offerings with current prices
- An area where they could get quick answers to their questions.
Discoveries
- The desires and requests of the product owners did not align with what users were seeking so both had to be harmoniously integrated.
- New/newer customers desired interactive map options, which could be used on their smartphones, whereas the product owners felt a static map and address would be sufficient.
- Existing users found that it was more important to have access to a list of bakery menu options more so than pictures while new users needed both to see if the gluten-free baked goods looked palatable. The product owners didn’t care either way so minimal imagery for each category was included in the product menu and throughout the site.
- Users didn’t need to know the “why” of how the bakery came into existence, they just cared about being able to get safe gluten-free options, however, it was very important to the product owners. Both the mission and its results (creating gluten-free baked goods) were addressed together in an “about me” page appeasing to both groups.
Solution
Screenshots of Rumi’s Passion bakery index page with a simple and clean layout showing four links to; our story, directions, FAQ’s, and the artisan bakery items menu offerings.
Beyond
Infinite time/money/resources solution
- Incorporate a chatbot option on the site so users were not required to read an FAQ page to search for their answers.
- Create a phone system that updates with changing daily store hours and offerings. This system would also reference the website as a means for answers to common questions when the store is closed.
- Greater SEO outreach could be gained through a more advanced WordPress paid plan.
- Incorporate a blog or option that links with Facebook so that returning customers can actively follow and stay current with daily product offerings, store hours, and daily specials or limitations.
- Integration of online ordering and pre-payment options for store pick-up or delivery.
