Web design case study
Website design for a bakery
Shawnie's stuff is a small business that specializes in custom cakes and cupcakes. The client wanted an online presence that represented the brand's identity and a gallery to showcase work by category.
Overview
UX goals
The main priority when building the site was keeping the ordering process simple yet comprehensive. From the bakery stand point we needed to collect enough information up front to remove overhead, but keep it simple enough so users are not overwhelmed with the process.
UX challenges
Shawnie's stuff receives orders directly from Instagram, building a website changes the process that the customers are accustomed to having when they want to place and order.
My role
As Designer for my project, I was involved in the entire process, including the overall strategy, user research, website hierarchy and visual designs.
Competitive analysis
The baked goods industry varies from company to company in terms services offered and website design. However I was able to implement common mental models like services offered, menu, order form and gallery.
Competitor: BCake NYC
BCake is a well known custom bakery in the same market as Shawnie's stuff. They are arguably the leader in custom cakes, their clientele includes A-list celebrities and several features to back up their reputation. After auditing their website - there was much to be desired from a UX standpoint but I was able to learn from their "request a quote" form, and how pictures visually communicate the quality and detail of their cakes.
Competitor: Robina's Cake
Robina's cake has a beautiful, well designed site that has a simple hierarchy with CTAs strategically placed to drive users to reach out and get a quote. The main take aways from this site were around the information architecture and content strategy on the home page.
Visual designs
Homepage
Leveraging the logo for Shawnie’s stuff I was able to create a home page that really brought the brand colors to life. The hero image showcases detailed cupcakes that perfectly match the logo.
Shawnie’s stuff provides more services than custom cupcakes. Based on the goals of the business I wanted to highlight those services early on and give the customers an opportunity to learn more about the business offerings. I worked directly with Shawnie to determine how we would categorize the other services and then I created an icon for each one. During usability testing users wanted to select these icons to view more, so these are now directly linked to the respective galleries.
The next section highlights the customer favorites with images that showcase the cakes and cupcakes. This gives the opportunity to browse specific galleries.
The story of how the business started is at the heart of Shawnie’s stuff and really allows a customer to feel personally connected. Adding the bio on the home page gives customers the opportunity to get to know the person behind the cupcakes.
The banner gives space to the event planning leg of the business, with a colorful fun background that feels like a party.
The final call to action on the home page is for social media where customers can see recent work first hand.
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Click to enlarge
Gallery
The gallery is a great way for customers to browse each category and get inspired. Each section is visually stimulating and vibrant. The CTA at the end of each gallery encourages you to place an order or head over to the next gallery for more inspiration.
Flavor menu
To reduce back and forth before orders are placed, we published the flavors menu to give customers an insight into what their options are before reaching out.
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Click to enlarge
Services + Party planning
The party planning services is a newer arm of the business that provides four separate tiers of service. To ensure that potential customers understand the differences in services I designed a separate page with the details and a CTA to start planning
FAQs
FAQs are a great way to provide quick information to help customers make a purchasing decision. For many people, the website FAQ page is the second page they go to after the Home or Services pages. Keeping with the team of the site we have a fun and colorful background image.
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