DEI Consultancy Site and Store
Redesigning a Consulting Firm’s website to be more informative, modern, and enable them to start selling their first digital products.
My Role
UX Designer & Content Designer
Redesign the site to more clearly state the company’s mission, and create a platform to take this previously service-based consulting firm to the digital product space.
The Goal
Since the launch:
+20% page views
-10% bounce rate on average year to date
-26% bounce rate immediately after launch
The Impact
The Client
Mine the Gap is a consulting agency who works with corporations, non-government, and government organizations to educate those in leadership roles on the importance of diversity in the workplace, and how to ensure they can provide an environment that is safe, where women and people of color can feel valued and thrive.
The Audit
The way I like to start all of my projects is by doing an audit of the current product. This allows me to see what I’m working with, click through every possible route the website has, and get a first impression before conducting research.
Below, you can see some examples from the original site.
While scouring the site, I created a flow to represent the way I moved through it, and what I noticed at first glance.
Now that I had completed a heuristic evaluation, and had my own experience as a user, it was time to complete some formal research to find out what is missing for users.
Research & Findings
With little time and resources allocated towards research, I had to be selective about which methods I chose. During the audit, and I found some obvious issues like broken buttons and links, misaligned UI, and bulky paragraphs that users would be likely to skip over, but my biggest concern was whether a new user and possible future customer would be able to tell what Mine The Gap offers at first glance.
I presented the site to 5 selected participants to gather the following data:
With a combination of project requirements, business goals, and now user data - I presented my client with a breakdown of the major changes we needed to make.
Roadblocks and New Requirements
It was at this point in the project that I was made aware of a new business goal that this project would bring to life — selling digital products. Previously, Mine The Gap had only offered in-person workshops, but they were nearly finished developing their first on-demand video trainings which they hoped could be featured and sold through their site. With this new information, my timeline needed to be adjusted.
The goal was still a website and content redesign, now with the addition of a digital product store.
Iterations and Solutions
Business and users goals were now fully established, which brings me to the iteration and solution portion of the project. I began by tackling the vital improvements to create a strong base site before the addition of the digital store. I collaborated solely with the cofounder and CEO of Mine The Gap to:
Create a new design system using established brand identity to promote accessibility and consistency throughout the site
Rewrite copy to follow content design standards, better inform users of MTG’s mission, and guide users to the proper CTA
Decide on visual and content hierarchy based on the goals of each page
Below are some examples of changes I made to the design system and certain pages on the site:
Content Design
I assisted the client in rewriting and refocusing the content on each page top better reflect their brand identity and inform users of their value prop in a more straightforward and digestible way. Some pages were redundant, some information or statistics were irrelevant, and there were walls of text that needed to be broken up.
Digital Products
For the next leg of the project, I needed to:
Design a store for the new digital products (on-demand training videos) including a landing page, paywall, purchase, and payment confirmation page.
Promote the new products on the homepage, and restructure the Services page to include both Products & Services
Lead users through a sign up flow, and allow them to login to access their purchased content
Check out the results:
Featured on the Homepage
Video Offerings Landing Page Part 1: Product Value
Clearly labeled offerings on the Products & Services page - prioritizing On-Demand Video Trainings
Video Offerings Landing Page Part 2: Product Descriptions
At this stage, Mine The Gap is earning most, if not all, of it’s revenue from the in-person services offered, but are hoping to slowly shift to earn a portion of the revenue passively, through these digital products. My big question was “How might I promote these new products while still emphasizing the services that are the foundation of the company?”
Through research and multiple iterations both for page and content design - I decided to highlight that Mine The Gap offers a “full suite of DEI services” in the first informational text on the homepage, and prioritize the new digital products with a “Featured Products” section below. For the Products & Services page, I presented the digital products button first, with the in-person offerings and board facilitation buttons immediately following. This way, new and familiar users alike can learn more about the new products, while still having easy access to the in-person trainings.
Learnings
This project was my first full-site redesign, and I learned so much going through the process, including working within an established brand, prioritizing tasks when project requirements are added or change, and effectively communicating how design and content changes benefit the user and business to stakeholders.
If I were to continue to work on this site, here is what I would do differently based on what I learned in this and subsequent projects:
Start with clearer project requirements
from the beginning to save time and give my client a more realistic timeline and quote
Share my work with other designers throughout the project
A the sole designer, I didn’t feel that I was able to take the time to share my process with other designers in my circle, buy in sharing the final product after the fact, I have gained helpful perspectives that may have positively influenced my work along the way. This could have saved me time during the iterative stages.
The Final Product
From research to launch, Mine The Gap now has a website that better represents their brand, fully equipped with a store to sell their digital products alongside their in-person workshops. This was a large-scale project with many more facets than I could display in this case study, so if you would like to learn more about the full requirements, pain points and speed bumps, or my process overall - reach out!