Baking it Real

Research and design come together to help a small business’s e-commerce platform flourish. 

TL;DR

A small locally owned business needed help figuring out why their customer conversion rate was so low on their e-commerce site. Through the use of extensive research, especially usability testing, a solution to the conversion rate problem was proposed. User personas and journey maps were created to assist in the creation of new designs. Wireframes were created and then tested via mock A/B testing. A final presentation and report explained all the changes recommended for the site.

Overview

My Role: Lead Content Strategist

Methods: Cognitive Walkthrough, Fly-on-the-wall Observations, Website Content Audit, IA Diagramming, Social Media Content Audit, Heuristic Evaluation, Competitive Analysis, Directed Storytelling, Usability Testing, A/B Testing, Wireframing

Tools: Google Suite, Zoom, Figma, Otter.ai

Deliverables: User Personas & Journey Maps, Touchpoint Strategy Map, Annotated Wireframes Report, Research & Recommendations Report, Final Presentation

Team Members: Tad Runkle, Colleen Borgendale, Andrew Brace, and Samantha Heggem

The Client

Baking it Real’s mission is to bring the joys of holiday baking to busy families and to cut down on the hassle, mess, and waste that typically comes along with baking. Baking it Real has developed cookie kits that contain almost all the ingredients you would need to bake cookies for the holidays and they deliver them right to your door. Currently, Baking it Real has had a lot of success at the local level around the holiday season and now they are looking to expand.

The Goal

Baking it Real has discovered that their current customer conversion rate is not what they expected. People are loving the product and are able to find the website, but they aren’t completing a purchase from the site. 

The major questions asked were: 

  • Do customers understand the product? 

  • Is the website easy to use?

  • What can be done to raise the conversion rate? 

In order to answer these questions, extensive user research was conducted.

The Research

Cognitive Walkthrough & Fly-on-the-wall Observation

The UX team walked through the process of baking cookies using the kit and took notes through the process. In separate sessions, three other participants baked cookies using the kits without the assistance of the design team. This was done in an effort to verify that the product itself was easy for customers to use.

Competitive Analysis

Six competitor websites were analyzed to verify how Baking it Real’s website compared in terms of functionalities and product offerings. It was important to check if the site was meeting common industry standards and to see if there was anything they could do to stand out amongst similar sites.

Click here to view notes

Directed Storytelling

Five participants were selected to talk about experiences with products similar to Baking it Real. Participants were first asked to talk about a common family tradition. Participants were then asked to talk about their experience with convenience services such as meal kits and subscription boxes. Storytelling was a useful way to learn more about who the user is and what they want in a product.

Usability Testing 

Six participants were selected to test the website in its current state. Three participants were considered self-purchasers/personal gift givers and three participants were business gifters. Participants were first asked to give general impressions of the homepage. Participants were then asked to complete a series of tasks and scenarios. Questions differed based on the type of purchaser. Lastly, participants were asked to rate their feelings about their experience.

Usability testing was the most important part of the research process. The testing allowed users to pinpoint specific issues within the system and to highlight what is exactly preventing users from finishing the purchasing process. 

Click here to view testing scripts

A/B Testing

In order to verify that the proposed designs successfully solved the conversion rate problem, a round of A/B testing was conducted. Due to not having access to the active site or a full prototype, standard A/B testing was not conducted. Participants were asked to complete a series of tasks and scenarios to determine if they had more success using the new designs. Six participants were split into two groups, one group tested the original site and the other tested the proposed designs. It was determined that the new designs were a significant improvement in customer satisfaction. 

Research Synthesis

Research was synthesized using affinity diagramming methods. Information was divided into multiple categories and then divided further into categories of pain points and successes. This information then influenced the creation of user personas and journey maps.

Personas

User personas were developed based on the insights gathered from the directed storytelling sessions. Common goals, motivations, and frustrations were highlighted to show how Baking it Real can fulfill those needs. Two personas were created, one to represent self-purchasers and one to represent business gifters.

Journey Maps

User Journey Maps were created for each user persona. The maps take users through the process of first landing on the homepage then to purchasing and making the cookies. Insights were gained from the website usability tests and cookie baking observations. The major low points on the maps indicate pain points for the shopping page and the checkout process.

Design Concepts

Based on user research, it was determined that major redesigns needed to be made to the homescreen, checkout page, and business gifts page. Small changes were needed for the shop page, product page, and the site’s header and footer.

Touchpoint Strategy

In addition to improving customer conversion rates, Baking it Real was also looking to see if there were new ways they can reach out to potential customers. Baking it Real was already very consistent with their social media strategy and has previous success with marketing at the local level. Many touchpoints were already in existence, but a few new ones were proposed based on information gained in Directed Storytelling

Some of the new recommended touchpoints included: expand their social media presence by connecting with local family focused influencers, create a curated testimonials page on the site, and include a physical promo code card in the box as a way to encourage current customers to share the information with a friend.

Next Steps

Once the recommended changes are made to the website, it would be best to monitor site analytics to verify if the changes are driving up customer conversion rates. Also at this time Baking it Real only offers two products, in the future, once more products are available the homepage can be used as a place where new products can be featured seasonally.

Conclusion

It’s not often that baking cookies leads to designing wireframes, but that’s what made this such a fun project to work on. Baking it Real had a very fun product and also a very serious business problem. It was great to explore user research to create designs that would help them solve this problem.