Martins is a small family-run company based in Hertfordshire specialising in furniture and flooring. They have a few shops in the area and try to provide a local shopping experience.
Project Summary
At Martins Furniture I was tasked with creating a consistent brand and a new website.
My role included:
- Branding
- Marketing assets
- Design of website
- Management and development of the site
Problem statement
Martins Furniture had several shops but with inconsistent and outdated branding.
Their website was not responsive, and e-commerce was not set up.
As a result, the brand and its products did not appeal to its target audience, and a new website and modernisation of the brand was required.
Research
To start the project off, I spoke to the team, and a selection of loyal customers who gave me an insight into their needs and requirements.
I started off by looking at a competitor analysis, and then created user personas. This helped me to understand Martins customers and the user requirements.
Aura Brooks
30, Married, Shop AssistantAn introverted mother of four who wants the best deal possible. Friendliness and customer service is important to her, thus if all goes well she will remain a loyal customer. Aura prefers to browse online (on mobile) but shop in-store.
Mario Parker
68, Widowed, RetiredAn older talkative gentleman who gets help from his two daughters with furniture shopping. He will either get it ordered online by them or he will drop by his local shop to have a chat and get more information regarding the product.
Eve Crawford
28, Single, Marketing AssociateA very busy single mum of two kids, who prefers online shopping but will go into a shop to buy beds & mattresses to discuss all her requirements for kids furniture. Eve's goal is a fast service and delivery.
Aaron Collins
38, Newly Married, AccountantAaron is newly married to his wife Jessica. They love shopping together and have planned their entire home furniture on their Pinterest board. They know all the information about their chosen product from the online website, but they wish to see the quality of furniture before purchasing.
Amanda Prince
63, Married, Office AssistantAmanda has remained a loyal customer of Martins since the previous owners, she regularly comes into the shop for a chat and will recommend this shop to her friends and family. She is IT literate and enjoys frequent browsing on her computer.
Branding
During the re-brand, I paid attention to web accessibility because Martin’s audience are people aged 45 and above. I ensured that the fonts chosen were easy to read and colours had high colour contrast.
When deciding on the brand design, it was important for me to try and attract the younger audience. Accessibility and modernisation were at the forefront of any design decision.
Light Grey
#417e94
Baby Blue
#c62a41
Dark Grey
#2f3530
Black
#2f3530
Poppins 30px
Aa
I am a headline.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Poppins 16px
Aa
I am a sub headline.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Poppins 14px
Aa
I am a body font.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Poppins 14px
Aa
I am a hyperlink.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Sitemap
When starting on the website design, I looked at their existing site structure; identifying where improvements could be made to improve the sites usability, SEO, and user experience.
The main issue of the existing site map was missing landing pages for product categories. I divided their furniture and flooring sections and created categories within them to help users navigate.
Style guide
The next step was creating a style guide which included:
- Logo
- Colour variations
- Typefaces
- Buttons
- Iconography
- Spacing and margins
When designing a new website it was important to consider the latest user experience guidelines to help older audiences navigate more easily. Examples include hover states, explicit CTA, etc.
Wireframing and design
Following my research, I was able to begin developing wireframes for the site.
Most of Martin’s customers prefer to view products online but purchase the items in-store, therefore it was essential to highlight new products and product categories on the home page for easier navigation and advertisment of new products.
Outcome
The new website is accessible and responsive with better SEO. Since its launch, the website has better organic search rankings. The sites average duration has increased from 22 seconds to 3 minutes.
They experienced an increase in sales, inquiries and general footfall. The type of customers that visit Martins has also changed; their customers average age has decreased.
The customers now visit the shop with a product in mind, having already browsed the website, which saves staff time and as a result they can serve more customers.
Possible iterations
Although the results of the website were good, accessibility could be further improved by:
- Increasing size of check boxes within filters to create more accessible browsing experience for all.
- Having more prominent navigation. The current navigation is likely to cause issues if a light image is selected as it will not pass colour contrast.
- Removing the use of text over images as this causes readability issues.
- Creating higher colour contrast within buttons.