Refining Strategy and Design
to tell the Specific Story
and Drive Conversion
Five clients with different content needs.
The Same Process Applied to all Five:
Content Audit, Competitive Research, Stakeholder Branding, and Strategy Consideration:
Reviewing all existing content and data, researching competitors, and interviewing stakeholders to determine their business goals and identify what is and isn’t working. Creation and beginnings of my UX Scorecard. Beginnings of branding worksheets, personas, and journeys to determine content.
Refinement of Personas, User Journeys, User Flows, and Languaging
By languaging, I mean through the research, discovering what it is that makes your buyer personas tick—solving their problem and doing so in the language they can understand.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes with Content Strategy and Design Included
Laying out the existing site next to the new proposed site is the moment my clients get excited, as they see the hard work pay off and visualize their new statement and offering to the world. It’s essential to include the key offerings for each persona and speak to this strategy in walkthroughs.
Building, Benchmarking, Testing, and Iterating
After the site is built and live, UX benchmarking begins. This includes reviewing the analytics, seeing where users click with heat maps and sign-ups, seeing where they hover over a word or words, and testing content.
From complexity and cognitive overload to readability and interaction.
It all begins with what information the user needs to continue their journey. In this case, the main product is a very complex, 400-level college course book. So the website needed to:
break down complexity into readability.
reduce cognitive overload while not disregarding IP issues with approved artwork
attract a specific user persona to dig deeper by providing them ways to participate with low effort.
The outcome is a homepage that summarizes the information in the book in ways an 8th-grade-level reader can understand despite the complexity of the subject matter.
Stakeholder alignment on refinement of messaging and product offering
Ellen and Dennis had so much to offer their clients, but there was a breakdown in how to refine their main offering and package their products. Finding the right strategy and content design:
brought their main unique and specific offering into focus, which set them apart from very fierce competition.
gave them confidence in how to speak to their core audience, not only in their marketing but in real life, by refining their product offering to their five key personas.
Redesigning for Focused Outcomes
SSCRA started over 10 years ago after the devastating Valley Fire in Northern California. The community asset-based non-profit has its finger on many pulses, yet was still known for its fire disaster relief and preparation efforts.
The brand story needed to evolve to reflect its core offering, which was consulting and strategy work for community development. How to tell all the stories and be clear to users?
Stakeholder meetings, interviews, workshopping, and Processwork until the core offerings emerged. This is a study in nuance and attention to the core passion and desire of the owners.
Building a site page by page, as well as events and email marketing that tell the full story.
Taking it offline: working with local groups to shape the rural community offering.
Turning a beautiful brochure into an actionable landing page for fundraising
A local sanctuary had started the process of converting to solar and had a deadline to raise money for the project before the PG&E rates went up. The savings were significant if the non-profit could reach its goal in time. The problem was that hardly anyone knew about the project, and the deadline was fast approaching. All they had was a beautiful, digital brochure PDF. The solution was multi-tiered:
A very time-sensitive story to be told.
An actionable landing page with the necessary numbers and facts to paint the picture for patrons.
Multiple donate buttons and a summary of the importance of the project.
Automated follow-up emails to tell the story outcomes as it unfolded and keep patrons’ attention and interest in the project.