SCOOPS
Web Modernization
DELIVERABLES
Discovery and Research
Information Architecture
Brand Development
Prototype
UX/UI DESIGNER
Wendy Gilbert
TOOLS
Figma
Illustrator
Photoshop
Overview
Selling the EXPERIENCE not the product!
I re-designed this catering website with a more modernized look and improved user experience with great emphasis on customer experience. Everything the user is looking for - all in one place! Clients will learn about how SCOOPS will benefit them through catering experiences first, followed by the types of products. Clients will also be able to easily submit a request for pricing, send a general inquiry and learn about services and products.
Discovery and Research
Problem Statement
So many products but where’s the EXPERIENCE?
The current SCOOPS site was published in 2011 and over the years, the site became cluttered and caused confusion for clients. Most did not know where to navigate because there was so much content. It was text heavy and hard to follow. Goal: To re-design the homepage with a cleaner, more modernized look. By doing this, the overall user experience should improve.
Target Audience
The majority of SCOOPS revenue comes from large corporate events.
• Commercial property management. People from the commercial side could be property managers, concierge or executive assistants.
• Residential Property management, this could be management from the leasing office.
• General Business. Requests from administrative assistants or specific departments.
• Individual groups, it could be HOA representatives.
Competitive Analysis
Here are examples of 3 different catering companies. Saint Germain is catering restaurant that services the Virginia, Maryland and DC areas. Ben & Jerry's a nationwide company specializing in ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet. And Rita's is a restaurant chain best known for their italian ice, frozen and custard and specialty creations.
Saint Germain
• The use of colors, fonts and photos shows that Saint Germain has more of a formal theme.
• Their call to action buttons are clear with the use of the bright orange.
•They use a grid structure that is nicely organized and easy for users to follow.
• While there are a lot of nice photos, there is also a lot of text that user may not read all the way through.
Ben & Jerry's
• Ben & Jerry's is popular ice cream brand that showcases their fun culture and uses fun colors, fonts and themes in their website.
• They use a grid structure that is nicely laid out, organized and easy for the users to follow along.
•They highlight their catering experiences first followed by their types of products.
• Ben & Jerry's site was designed with the users in mind. I liked that for each "Get Quote" button, their is a unique form that pops up which would ultimately hep not only the clients but the Ben and Jerry's sales team as well.
Rita's
• The site's use of colors and fonts fit well with the aesthetics of the company.
• The colors used breaks up each of the sections nicely so that users can easily know where they currently are on the site
• Rita's goes straight to selling their Party Packs right from the beginning which nice for the individual consumers.
• I would move the "Let's Get Your Party Started" section above the Party Packs as that would highlight the different types of services they offer first.
Personas
Next is building the personas. Based on the learned target audience, I created characters that best represented the people who are likely to work with SCOOPS.
From my research, the following are opportunities that I have found to improve the overall user experience:
• The Request A Quote button is clear and visible in the header, header image, in the body of the homepage and footer. This will allow users to not have to scroll and search.
• A general contact form is created instead of forwarding users to an info email address. This is less steps for users as they only need to complete the general contact form and submit, rather than opening up another browser and access their personal email.
• SCOOPS catering experiences and specialties are clearly laid out on the front of the homepage to give users ideas for their events.
Biography
Mandy studies business and communications in college. She loves to help people and is always listening and giving suggestions. Mandy also enjoys planning events because they are one of the few times she can gather everyone together to have a good time and away from the their desks. Whatever tasks she is given, she gets them done in a timely manner. She puts out the fire with confidence and will make sure things are in control as much as they can be. She is an Executive Assistant working for a large tech firm. Her boss wants to host a company-wide appreciation event with ice cream! She needs to have everything planned out and confirmed in a week.
Goals
• Be resourceful and be the problem solver for any issues that might arise.
• Plan events that are fun and memorable for her company.
• Stay in control of all tasks while also staying flexible to meet Rob’s needs as well as the needs of others employees from other departments.
Pain Points
• Although Mandy works well under pressure she doesn’t appreciate when people wait until the last minute for anything or everything.
• Lack of communication. When things need getting done but often times people are not on the same page which results in things not getting done.
Biography
Michelle is a people person. She studied marketing in college, so she’s always planning and finding creative ways to engage with everyone around her. Michelle has a bright personality, always motivated and loves to bring people together. She constantly checking in with her tenants because she understands the importance of building raport. She is a property manager for a large office building. Tenant Appreciation is coming up and she wants to find ways to show her gratitude. She’s open to options so that the service and products will meet everyone’s needs.
Goals
• Ensuring the happiness of her tenants.
• Makes sure to stay on top of day-to day operations, such as clearing maintenance tickets.
• Communicate with tenants by keeping them up to date with building events or projects.
• General accounting - Making sure bills are paid while the company maintains their monthly revenue.
Pain Points
• Lack of communication, ie. changes being made by board without letting her know.
• Vendors canceling appointments last minute leading to projects falling behind schedule and as a result, upsetting tenants.
• Sometimes feeling burned about due to others not putting in the same energy and motivation as she does on a day to day basis.
Information Architecture
Journey Maps
Mandy decides to choose SCOOPS because they were available. She submits her request page, and a Sales Manager follows up and works with her to finalize her event details. On the day of the event, everything is set up, the event starts and everyone is happy. Mandy had a good experience overall. She had options to choose from and was happy that SCOOPS came through to fulfill the request with ease.
Michelle attends a company wide meeting every month to go over business matters. It just so happens that Tenant Appreciation is just around the corner, she decides to do some research on what’s out there. She wants to work with a Catering company who is flexible with her tenants’ needs and has a variety of options. SCOOPS offer assorted baked goods which could be good for either a thank breakfast or thank you dessert. She submits her form, works with the Sales Manager to finalize the details. The event day arrives, SCOOPS does the set up, service and clean-up and everyone is happy. Michelle had a good experience with the booking process and was happy with SCOOPS’ overall service.
Original Site Map
I recreated SCOOPS’ old site Map. As you can see, there is a lot going on. No wonder users were confused. There was a lot of content in the header. A lot of content overall. Multiple pages routed back to one singular page. A lot of focus on products themselves and the idea of experience seemed to have gotten lost.
Card Sorting
8 people participated in my card sorting activity on Optimal Workshop. This gave me a better idea on how the new page should be organized based on some new insight. Participants were able to group a lot of the products and services in categories that made the most sense to them. Based on the data provided in Group 5 and 6, a chunk of the cards were grouped together and labeled as business services and event opportunities.
The end users care more about the events. This information reinforced what users are looking for on a page.
New Site Map
This is the new site map for SCOOPS. It’s cleaner and users should not have to go back and forth to find the information that they are looking for. Catering experiences and Specialties are laid out on the homepage and if users would like to learn more, they’ll just need to click on the corresponding images. If users have a general question, they can submit a general inquiry under contact whereas the current site does not have that feature. Finally, users can also submit a request a quote form easily.
User Flow
Here is a user flow describing a user’s step by step task in submitting a Request a Quote form. I soon realized that a user’s flow to Requesting a Quote is not always a linear process.
• They may not fill out all the fields of the form before submitting.
• The event date selected may not be the finalized date.
• They may stop halfway and prefer calling just in case they had additional questions they need answered right away.
Sketching It Out
Solution Sketches
Initial Wireframes
From the sketches, I then turned to Figma and digitized the wireframes and made them clickable.
User Interviews
I interviewed 3 people and asked them questions involving their catering experiences, whether it was through work or home life. Here are some key quotes that stuck out to me. I found that the responses to how the dessert catering made them feel to be very enlightening because as adults, you develop such a busy life that you forget to sit back, relax and enjoy life as a whole. Resting your mind is good and when ice cream or any dessert gives you the sense of nostalgia you feel care free just like when you were a child.
User Testing
I worked with 3 users to test out my interactive prototype of the newly designed website.
• Being able to easily navigate through the homepage is nice because the original site was not allowing that.
• There was no clear direction.
• Testers were able to easily locate the request a quote button which was nice.
• A tester mentioned that this design is ideal for someone who knows what they’re looking for and just wants to go ahead and put in the request OR someone who wants to simply learn more. The website was re-designed for both types of audiences.
Wireframe Iterations
After talking to the users and having them test the initial wireframes, I went back and made some iterations and here are the changes that I made.
Here are 3 different iterations of the homepage:
• Version 1: This was an edge to edge design. Request a quote button only appears in the banner image and when you scroll down to the page.
• Version 2: On an accessibility standpoint, I created margins that helps clearly define where the content begins and where they end. This makes it easier for the users’ eyes to navigate through the page. Request a Quote buttons were also added to the header and footer so that users would not have to scroll all the way to top or bottom just send a request. I also cleaned up the look of the email input area along with adding in a general avatar to the testimonial section. To give these low fidelity wireframes a bit more life, I replaced lorem ipsum placeholder with actual text to give testers a sense that they are testing out an actual site.
• Version 3: I included the 3 straight forward service types just under the banner, and these will be depicted through simple icons.
Prototype
Test the clickable prototype by clicking on the image below.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, it was all about the experience! Give customers a reason to want SCOOPS and it starts out by providing them with a simplified website. Highlight the experiences first, then products second.
Challenges:
• Conducting research through in person interviews and testing was difficult, so we had to improvise through video calls.
• Simplifying all of SCOOPS' services and products from over the years and having to schedule the client to see what content he would like to keep or remove.Takeaways: Keep it simple through a simplified site that still provides all the information a potential client might want to know without them having to go digging around through the site. Too much content will deter someone away and they will likely go to someone else who is more straight forward.
If you made it this far, then you're probably wondering "Hey! So what does the new site look like?" The site is now LIVE! Please check out www.scoops2u.com!
Case study created in 2021
Wendy Gilbert