Coffee House Press / coffeehousepress.org
Overview
Assignment: Create a functional, modern ecommerce website for a small but internationally renowned independent publisher.
Role: Designer (UX/UI), Website Manager
Tools: Adobe Suite, Shopify CMS
Duration: Six months
Problem
The previous site had an outdated web presence riddled with broken links and clunky navigation. Checkout flows were difficult to complete and lacked the nuance needed to scale sales effectively.
Research
Market research conducted by an independent researcher indicated users were primarily middle-age, initiating contact with the site through shopping, and were interested in the brand of the press due to its established influence in the industry.
Flows and pages became shopper-centric rather than featuring content like news and publisher updates. Although these were still available through navigation, CTAs highlighted preorders, buy-now options, and sales.
In addition to being functional and sales-driven platform, users from readers to media must be able to find and engage with relevant content.
Limited by budget, the ecommerce site was set up by a volunteer developer. I then designed site architecture, implemented styling and content strategy across all pages, and applied custom CSS and HTML as needed. The project in total spanned six months.
Impact
The publisher experienced a 186% increase in website sales within the first year of the website launching, decreased bounce rate, and received positive comments by users across social media platforms.