Bare Bones Solutions Website Updates
For the second half of the SAIT and Tacit Edge Applied Product Management Program, we got paired with students from UX and/or Product Marketing cohorts to work with a real company. In my group, which had one other student, we started with setting work expectations, understanding communication preferences, and I created shared Google files for us to track our work. Before the first client meeting, I wanted to ensure that it centred around asking questions to get to the root of their issues.
A UX Design student and I were paired with Bare Bones Solutions, a Calgary start-up that has made animal bone degreasing easier and faster with a brand new product. From the first meeting with the owner and user interviews, it became clear that the product is great for its intended purpose, and the main issue to prioritize was the website, which doesn't have a purchase button. The website also has information laid out in an overwhelming way with walls of text or unlabelled photos, and fixing these issues was critical to facilitate great user experiences and more sales for the owner. My partner and I updated webpages by creating and editing duplicate non-live pages, and tested these with users. We got largely positive feedback and only minor changes suggested.
My partner and I otherwise had to create a 7-minute video presentation to review our project journey, and to share a vision and roadmap for Bare Bones Solutions to move forward with.
Currently, I am staying on with Bare Bones in a casual volunteer capacity to finish website updates from tester feedback, and to implement a purchase page and a marketing strategy. I will update this page as new highlights come up!
Current Website.
As you can see from these screenshots, Bare Bones’ website doesn’t do well to facilitate purchases. Where there should be a Purchase button (which every user in their interview said should be here), there’s only a Contact button and Contact-for-Sales messaging. The header on the home page is also quite loud, the walls of text are overwhelming, and the lack of organization for result photos doesn’t tell a meaningful story of how helpful the degreaser is. All of this increases abandonment from the website, which leaves users’ problems unsolved and Steve (Bare Bones’ owner) with low sales.
Project Edits.
Highlights from the project’s edits include:
Getting testers’ thoughts on a homepage intro video
Organizing pages with walls of text into an accordion, which received great feedback!
Organizing photos into three categories (nicer Results photos, Before and After photos from the owner, and Customer Result photos) with information about them to really show how well the degreaser works
Latest updates.
Until the final edits are live, I have screenshots here of:
An updated colour scheme that’s more user friendly
Anchor links and back-to-top buttons that have been added to longer pages
The vision statement that I created being added to the About Us page
An example of more organized photos with a corresponding testimonial mixed in
As soon as these edits and a purchase page are live, I’ll be excited to let you know!
