Increasing quarterly retail revenue for a small manufacturing business by 12%
Since 1975, Woodstream Hardwoods has been in business offering a remarkable array of high-quality woods in Knoxville, TN. Created by Jimmy McNutt, they provide a wide selection of solid wood & wide plank flooring, along with finish and installation services. Reclaimed wood creates exceptional wall boards, siding, mantles, flooring, and other wood products. Woodstream Hardwoods also handles their coloring and antiquing process. They take pride in delivering personalized and top-notch service!
Woodstream Hardwoods has reported a low number of customer contacts through calls and messages since the beginning of the year (2022). Ultimately, this has led to reduced sales/revenue. The company believes retail customers are being pushed away because of an outdated website.
The goal is to visually update the website, increase website retention, and boost retail customer calls/messages into sales.
I worked as the lead UX designer for this project, which entailed analyzing existing data, developing a new website architecture through card sort testing, conducting usability tests, redesigning the website, and assisting in the website development stage.
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The Team
Jonathan
Lead UX Designer
Leighton
Wordpress Developer
After gaining access to the analytics, I reviewed critical data points that might be hindering customer website participation. Below are alarming metrics and assumptions to validate moving forward.
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Bounce Rate
The website's user bounce rate stands at 77.8%, indicating a dissatisfactory level according to the bounce rate scale.
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Location of Site Visitors
The data reveals that Ashburn, VA holds the second-highest website traffic after Knoxville, TN, aligning with the owner's observation of high calls from out-of-state.
Device Type Usage
The user distribution shows approximately 50.6% accessing the website via mobile, 46.7% through desktop, and 2.7% using tablets.
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Page Views Per Page
We have a total website view count of 4,609. Below is a breakdown percentage for each page of the website.
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Landing Page: 69.43%
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Contact Page: 13.8%
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Photos Page: 9.59%
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Sales Page: 1.35%
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Traffic Sources
Traffic sources show a very low percentage (3%) of users coming from social media pages, directly to the website. We also know that there are no active links on either the social page (Instagram) or the website.
**Data analytics from Google was analyzed from January 1st, 2022 to May 24th, 2022.
Bounce Rate
Based on the high bounce rate, we can create assumptions to say that the landing page potentially creates an environment associated with cognitive overload and disinterest.
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Device Type Usage
We see nearly split device usage between mobile and desktop, indicating that it is vitally important that we conduct usability testing and design for all device types.
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Page Views Per Page
We believed that the nearly 70% view rate for the landing page is directly correlated with the bounce rate. This indicates that we are seeing a very low number of people viewing the other pages. We believe that adding additional pages with the addition of SEO tags will help attract more users to various pages.
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Traffic Sources
The owner is very active on the Facebook and Instagram social media platforms. We believe that the 3% social media traffic is reducing the total number of visitors on the website because of various reasons, including no links on the instagram page and potentially poor placement of social media links on the website.
Based on these data takeaways, I proposed the following UX design recommendations to improve the website's overall performance and user experience:
Card Sorting + Information Architecture
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Conduct UX card sorting to understand mental models for the navigation and help aid the creation of the website IA
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Enhance the directory and navigation to aid users in finding relevant information easily.
User Interviews
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Conduct thorough usability testing to identify qualitative pain points and areas for improvement on both desktop and mobile websites.
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Visual Design Update​
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Redesign the entire website based on usability studies, feedback from the users, analytical data, card sorting, and general design standards.
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SEO Optimization
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Discuss, plan, and execute various SEO methods with the WordPress Developer. This would include title tags and meta descriptions, optimizing loading times for both mobile and desktop, as well as social media engagement.
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Upon further analysis of the data analytics, it became apparent that the existing information architecture (I.A.) was insufficient. To address this, we conducted user research using card sorting to gather valuable feedback. Subsequently, we have developed an updated I.A. based on the insights obtained from user feedback.
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Below is the original landing page structure:
We chose to perform a closed card sorting study to assess the website's information architecture, content grouping, labeling, and terminology choices. My assumption indicated that the navigation labels lacked clarity for users to find what they were looking for.
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I arranged key phrases/words onto cards and mixed them randomly. Then, I gathered and guided a group of 25 individuals to sort these cards into relevant groups and assign appropriate category names. The words provided are closely related to the content found on the current website, encompassing services, products, contacts, sales, and about me sections.
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Participants:
25
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Method:
Remote Unmoderated
UX Tweak Platform
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Creating mental models by grouping keywords and phrases helps understand how users actively search for specific products or services. This can lead to improved navigation and user experience on the website.
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Upon reviewing the dendrogram results, the following key findings stand out:
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80% of users clustered items like custom interiors, custom flooring, custom woodwork, and custom wood together, and they consistently preferred having the term "custom" in the category name.
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70% of users grouped flooring installation, sanding, finishing, and woodwork installation as a separate category, indicating a distinction from other groups.
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80% of users grouped content like Our Story, Our Promise, and Photo Gallery, suggesting the need for a category named Our Company or About Us.
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70% of users grouped various items such as wood slabs, hardwood flooring, hardwood lumber, mantles, countertops, stairs, and accent walls/barnwood.
The key takeaways were the following:
Terminology Clarity
Users experienced confusion regarding certain terminology, such as 'stairs' being unclear if it referred to a product or service. By renaming it to 'custom stair installations,' the website aimed to reduce confusion and enhance clarity for users.
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Services Subcategories
Users were unsure about the differences between 'custom wood' and 'custom woodwork.' For example, some individuals thought 'custom wood' mean't you could choose specific types of wood for specific projects, while others thought 'custom wood' referred to the general custom woodwork being offered. To address this issue, we considered implementing services subcategories for both 'custom woodwork' and 'Installations.' This allowed users to easily distinguish between the services being offered.
I revamped the information architecture by organizing keywords/phrases, enhancing terminology clarity, and implementing services subcategories to cater to the specific needs of both Woodstream Hardwoods and its users.
My next step was to conduct a usability test on the current website to gain deeper insights into users' content navigation preferences. Out of the 25 participants who took part in the card sorting, I selected 5 individuals who met specific requirements to participate in the usability test.
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Participants:
5 participants
Age: 32 - 58
Purchased wood in the last 12 months
Hired custom woodwork services in the last 12 months
Searched and made contact with the business via digital services
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Method:
Remote Moderated
Zoom
Google Sheets
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Navigate and learn more about the products
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Navigate and learn more about the services
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Find and input your data in the contact section
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Find the current sales and interpret in your own words what the price of cherry wood is
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Navigate to the social media pages.
After usability testing was conducted, I created an affinity map and cluster user thoughts and challenges into various consistent themes.
Bryant
Usability Tester
Cognitive Overload
Most users felt that there was too much information and irrelevant content on the home page.
"There are so many words, colors, and pictures. I feel overwhelmed just looking at the main page."
Terminology Jargon
All users could not transcribe what content within the sales pages actually means in layman's terms. Forcing the user to feel overwhelmed and leave the site. Most users said that they weren't interested in specific prices for specific types of food. They just wanted a discount number for types of woodworking projects.
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"The terminology doesn't make sense to me. What do custom wood slabs mean? Is this a product or a service? I'm confused!"
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Poor Navigation/User flow
Users were understandably frustrated with how the content was displayed. Nearly half of the users could not find out more about the products and/or services, ultimately unsuccessful in completing the task. The other users were able to find products/services but felt that it shouldn't have taken that long to find. No time-on-task metrics were measured.
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"It's hard to understand and know where to go. I just want to see the tables they've designed. I can't seem to find that anywhere.
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Design Inconsistency
Most users commented about it feeling outdated, leaving the users with a sense of distrust in the website.
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"The design is really overwhelming and my brain is overwhelmed by all the visual differences!"
Zeke
Usability Tester
Dylan
Usability Tester
Jasmine
Usability Tester
After collecting qualitative and quantitative data from both usability and card sorting studies, I dove deeper into redesigning the entire website. Below are the high-fidelity visual design changes for both mobile and desktop.
Following the initial information architecture changes and usability testing insights, we could only implement a full visual design overhaul. Due to budget and time limitations, post-design usability testing was not conducted. This led to the absence of concrete qualitative data to compare with the previous design iterations.
However, we were able to analyze quantitative data to assess whether these methods aligned with the clients' and business goals. After five months, we examined the data in Google Analytics to evaluate if there were any improvements in metrics.
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**We compared data between January 1st, 2022 - May 24th, 2022 to May 25th - October 10th, 2022.
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Improved Bounce Rates
The initial bounce rates significantly improved from 77.8% to 41.2%, indicating increased website engagement for all users.
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Enhanced Total Page Engagement with CTA Buttons
Adding CTA buttons for sales and contact pages led to enhanced total page engagement, with sales page engagement rising from 1.35% to 15%, and contact page engagement improving from 13.8% to 26%. Ironically, this led to increased customer contact with the owner.
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Substantial Increase in Customer Contact and Sales
The owner noticed a substantial 75% increase in customer contact during the first half of the 2022 fiscal year, with retail customers reaching out through website messages or phone calls. This also correlated with increased revenue sales.
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Revenue Increases in Q3 vs. Q1
Importantly, there was a substantial 12% revenue surge between Q1 to Q3, thus underscoring the positive outcomes the company benefited from.
Convincing the Stakeholder
One thing I realized when beginning this project was trying to convince the stakeholder that extracting qualitative and quantitative data was necessary to improve the overall business. Providing proven research about the business impacts was necessary. He was expecting a quick visual fix, without critically thinking about his users.
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Time and Budgetary Constraints
Unfortunately, I was unable to conduct additional usability studies on the final design changes because of financial reasons. Based on the UX research, I conveyed the most important insights and changes that should be made to the software engineer.
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Uncovering the WHY
I was unable to determine the root cause of why customers were calling from Ashburn, VA. I spent time calling different lumber/wood companies, speaking with the owner, and other investigative measures but was unsuccessful in determining a large number of visitors for the first half of the year. The data did show that the second half of the year saw a drastic drop in views from this location.
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Because we had quantitative data showing we were on the right track for improvements, I would continue to work on the following objectives:
1. Continue to visually design and improve the website
2. Perform round 2 usability iteration design changes
3. Continue to examine quantitative metrics and monitor YoY revenue
4. Continue to periodically conduct competitive analysis
5. Continue to conduct user interviews to understand user wants, needs, and motivations when navigating through local wood manufacturing websites.