Business Needs 

Due to the pandemic and the trend towards online shopping, the owner decided to build a website to improve the customer experience and expand their client base beyond the local farmers market.

Kandoo offers a refund on qualified Kandoo containers to local customers only. They want to promote their refund service for their local customers on their website

As part of their commitment to sustainability and awareness of issues that threaten bee well-being and ecosystems, they do not offer products such as Pollen, Propolis, or Royal jelly. 

Design Goals

Design a responsive website that offers:

• A pleasant and easy online shopping experience for customers

• Provides local customers with information regarding "refund service"

• Educates and encourages sustainable living while describing the sustainability goal of the business

The users:

• are interested in honey labels, packaging color, and design

• keep asking vendors about ingredients, origin, and the methods used in the production processes

• are interested in sustainability practices that have been done 

User Interview

We conducted user interviews to learn about their product selection thought process.

Takeaways:

• Having organic honey is important and would be a priority if it were an easy way for customers to purchase

• Customers are interested in learning more about the products they buy

• Customers would support a local honest small business over big brands

• Because of the pandemic, they prefer to shop online 

Competitive Analysis

As part of our research, we identified some local beehive online stores in the United States selling natural, organic bee products and compared their offerings and website features/functionality.

Takeaways:

• Product information is essential

• Information about the beekeeping process and the owner's story need to be available

• Offering educational content about honey bees is helpful 

Affinity Diagram

We created an affinity diagram as a result of compiling data to organize our user research learning and identify major goals

and pain points. This analysis enabled us to build a user persona.

Persona

Kate is a product manager who cares about her health and buys organic products. Before the pandemic, she usually shopped at local shops and farmer's markets. The Kandoo brand is well known to her, and she frequently buys honey there.

After the pandemic hit, she searched for an online store to buy organic honey. On Google, she searches for Kandoo and finds its website. She browsed the website and ordered a jar of honey. She also noticed that the "container refund option " is also available online. As she had two Kandoo jars, she selected the "return jar option" when placing her order.

How Might We

With these new insights in mind, we crafted How Might We statements to narrow down our project scope and created a User Persona that we felt embodied the expectations of our interviewees and whom we could effectively target with a business plan.

• How might We help communities access the organic honey of their region?

• How might we help customers build trust in the beekeeper and the quality of the product they purchase?

• How might we bring the farmer's market experience to the users at the convenience of their homes?

• How might we educate and encourage people to shop sustainable products?

• How might we provide educational content to users in regard to local organic honey?

Task Flow and User Flow

To better understand the users and how they would interact with the site, we created a user flow and a task flow based on Kate's needs. Below is the journey Kate takes to order a jar of honey.

Site Map

Based on our previous research, especially competitive analysis, we’ve created the following sitemap. 

Wireframes

We created both low and medium-fidelity wireframes in Figma. Once the wireframes were in a good state, I added photos and content, after which I created an interactive prototype in Figma. 

Low-fi wireframe

Mid-fi wireframe

Homepage Iteration

Mood Board and UI Kit

User testing & Iterations

After running a couple of usability tests, we decided to revise the design and website flow.  

Shop by category

We added a "shop by category" link in the middle of the home page to give users an alternative way to browse the products. 

Login & Checkout Processes

We also simplified the online checkout process substantially. We added the option for customers to log in with Google when creating a profile and make payments via either Apple Pay or Google Pay for a streamlined checkout experience. 

Hi-Fi Desktop Design

Hi-Fi Mobile Design

I Learned:

In the research phase of this project, I conducted a survey to gather user insights and validate assumptions for the website design. However, after analyzing the survey results, I found that the data did not add significant value or uncover new insights beyond what I had already gathered from my contextual research and user interviews. 

This experience highlighted the importance of carefully selecting research methods based on the project’s specific needs and the data already gathered. Since contextual research and interviews had provided rich, qualitative insights, the survey did not contribute much additional information. 

Next Steps

• Add a "Private Tour" tab for people to plan visits and learn about bees and the importance of sustainable beekeeping practices in the food chain. Tours are available to all for school field trips, office team bounding/outings, birthday education parties, and more."