Timeline
February 2020 - October 2020
Areas of focus
UX Design · Web Design · Service Design
Description
Barn2Door serves thousands of small and midsize farmers across the country selling a wide variety of food products. In addition to access to their ecommerce platform, they set up farmers for online success across web, social and communication channels. I managed team of 5 designers creating custom websites, brand kits for consistency across their social channels and email templates for hundreds of small farm customers. In leading the team I was responsible for updating processes, managing our team and each individuals targets, providing feedback and presenting on behalf of department. I designed a semi automated intake system to guide customers through the design process in a simple and efficient manner, considering every touchpoint of their Customer Journey. I created template website designs and wireframes for customers to choose from, and design and presented over 125 custom websites and branding kits to unique farm customers across the country.
PROCESS
I redesigned our process to help our farmers get high quality websites and design services in an efficient and effective way, keeping our design costs down while more than doubling our team's output. Each step of our farmer's customer journey was considered, aiming to make the process of working with our small design team quick, easy and most importantly, satisfactory. I added in automation to gently remind farmers to upload content and fill out the necessary information, but also made sure that they always had the human touchpoint of their Brand Manager to help move the project along.
The designer's were given what they needed to get started, without wasting their time in countless meetings or briefings, and training for the presentation was improved to make it a fun and interactive experience for our farmers. By creating templates, surveys and a clearly outlined process for our farmers, I made sure that each of their experiences followed a clear and proven path, while allowing for the flexibility and customization that made it feel as if they had hired a full service design firm. In the end they were provided with not only a great new website but a clear a consistent brand across all of their social and communication channels.
INTAKE
During the intake phase, each farmer gets personalized automated emails with information about the website design process, as well as prompts to upload their logo, basic information and schedule a time to meet with their Brand Manager. Once they complete those basic steps, they meet with the Brand Manager to discuss details and specific requirements, confirm information, and are given a brief survey to fill out.
One of the most exciting steps for our farmers is choosing between our many custom made templates to help them find a structure and starting point for their website. Of course each website is built to their needs to with their content and brand, but having a set of choices for them to start with really helps speed up the process and ensure that they will be happy with the functionality of the outcome. We created our templates with a wide range of farmers in mind, and, to minimize confusion and make it clear that any template could work for any kind of farm, created wireframes of each design. This allows farmers to see both an inspiring example of what the site could look like, as well as a peek at the underlying structure without content.
In the video below you can see as farmers are able to preview multiple website templates, switch between regular view and wireframe mode, and see real farm examples.
WEBSITE DESIGN
DESIGN PROCESS
INTERNAL REVIEW GUIDELINES
Homepage
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The hero image is farm appropriate
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Text overlay is readable
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Shop button above or just below the fold
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There is at least one shop CTA (bullet above counts)
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Clear CTA’s leading visitors around the site (attention to the visitor journey)
Other pages
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Product page - Clear navigation to store and farm products
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Contact page* - Map, Find Us and Contact Form (*high variability farm to farm)
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Newsletter CTA located in footer (unless there’s a good reason not to)
Typography
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Font choice is farm appropriate (complements farm branding)
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Font choice is readable (Google flags text smaller than 14px)
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Fonts are paired using best practices and appropriate for the farm.
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Text is divided into logical, manageable “chunks” and clear hierarchy
Overall Design
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Clear Hierarchy
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Image choices are appropriate for the farm (No carcasses, no meat next to live animals, etc)
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The color palette is appropriate for the farm (Resembles branding or complements products/imagery)
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Shop buttons all open in a new tab
UNIQUE FARMS, UNIQUE SITES
Each farm had their story to tell, and we made sure to tell it with their brand and their photos, bringing out the unique voice of each and every farm.
MOBILE FOCUS
With over 60% of website traffic on mobile devices, it was crucial our farmer's website performed well on mobile. We made designing for responsive screen sizes a priority.
FUNCTIONALITY & SIMPLICITY
With each different farm requiring their own set of needs, we made sure that their websites provided all of the functionality they might need to connect with and serve their local customers. At the same time, we focused on streamlining each website to the most important elements, understanding that most visitors were only on the site for 5-10 seconds before heading to the shop or bouncing off the website.
DRIVING SALES & ENGAGEMENT
The websites helped tell our farm's unique stories and share their brand, but they also focused on bringing measurable success to our farms in terms of sales converted, new followers and email signups. We tailored the user flows to help people find the most relevant and important information, while ultimately driving them towards the checkout.
BRAND CONSISTENCY
In addition to the website, each farmer received help with making their brand consistent across all of their platforms, including favicons, social media profiles and banners, as well as mailchimp templates to use for email marketing.
HAPPY FARMERS
"I’m really excited that you guys [Barn2Door] are building our website, especially since we’re seeing such a response to online sales. I know it’s important to have that digital presence and have it be really beautiful—and the virus is creating a huge opportunity for local farmers to be online and capture sales. Having an updated website has been on my to-do list forever, and I’m so happy to hand that off to Barn2Door.
-Farmer Kate
Wayland, MA