CUBE ONLINE WEBSITE
UX & D
THE CHALLENGE
Cube Online’s website needed a renovation. My job was to create an informative and engaging platform that would appeal to business owners, startups and entrepreneurs. The idea was to make the website accessible to all customers throughout their journey with Cube Online.
THE JOURNEY
- Our main target market were primarily small business owners. We want to be able to tell our story to new and existing customers with clear content and an engaging design. It should be clear what we do, why we do it and how we do it from the first instance.
- We also wanted to appeal to bigger organisations and bigger campaigns whose have similar missions to Cube Online. Developing future partnerships with other creative digital marketing companies, will only make Cube Online’s brand and mission stronger.
- Be the champion of small businesses.
- Help small businesses be found online with accurate and consistent information.
- Ensure when businesses’ are found online, they look good and are engaging.
- We want to partner or work together with local organisations and together empower small local businesses.
Setting realistic deadlines can sometimes be challenging, most times it becomes an internal fight between what we want to achieve AND setting the deadline we can all commit to.
At this stage, it is important (sometimes even vital) that you have the right people in the room, to make sure we set ‘SMART’ goals. Everyone loves to know we are moving towards the right destination, in the right vehicle, at the right speed and on the best route.
- Homepage
- Sales platform
- Landing pages
- Ecommerce
- My account
- …and the list goes on
We want to help customers understand what Cube Online do at a glance. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, so finding key information quickly is very important.
We want to appeal and cater to potential customers or business owners, regardless of how much they know already about Cube Online. Whether they found us online or through our employees, customers should know what they are looking for. It could be something specific on our products or services or about the company, therefore the flow of navigation should be clear enough to direct them to whichever part of the website they think they need quickly.
In addition we want to seduce new customers online by being informative and engaging about our products and services as well as showcasing our company as a validated Google Street View Trusted agency.
The initial brainstorming session involved the Product Manager and Lead Designer with the objective of ‘speaking out loud’ ideas. We quickly sketched all ideas and got immediate thoughts about what worked, what threats we could face and what direction and structure we should go for. Our main outcome for this session was to have the version 1 layout agreed by both the Product Manager and Lead designer. With this we could move onto the next phase which involved content and design planning.
After the productive and juicy whiteboard session, I researched into our competitors to see how other digital agencies showcase their vision, mission, products and/or services. Further detailed drawings were produced in order to explore how can we best showcase Cube Online and their products and services. This was a great opportunity to produce quick sketches and assess what works and what doesn’t visually and functionally.
After amending our hand drawn designs with the feedback gathered from our multiple brainstorming sessions, I could then design digital wireframes. Having them done digitally, allowed other members of the team to really visualise what it would look like on a device. For a structured and viable feedback session, I created 4 duplicate designs that had small amendments and variations.
The session included Head of Sales and Head of Product. I presented them with the 4 variation of designs on the homepage layout, navigation and flow. After a successful group discussion, we chose option 3.
Gathering all internal and external feedback, I designed the high resolution version of the new Cube Online website.
REFLEXIONS & TAKEAWAYS
- Identifying key players from the start brings clarity throughout the journey and avoid conflicting opinions.
- Don’t be afraid of chasing people and be persistent with deadlines.
- As much as I want to, it is hard to please everyone. But by taking on all ideas and try to add them into ‘next stage’ development, you can create a website that benefits all users.
- It is important to keep the CEO and Directors in the loop after every feedback session. They don’t need to be key players but they do need to know how and why we came to important decisions.
- Keep notes along the way to document tasks, problems and resolutions. This will help you understand and show how the journey of the website design and functionality evolved.