Duxbury Creative - Crema - Microsite Concept

Project Details

Client: General Assembly - Microsite Project

Date: August, 2018

Programs: Axure, Photoshop, Illustrator

UX SKILLS: C&C Analysis, User Research, Card Sorting, Personas, Sitemaps, User Flows, Wireframing, Hi Fidelity Interactive Prototyping

The Crema microsite is a concept microsite that I developed for Illy and Williams Sonoma. (This microsite is strictly conceptual only and has not been developed or launched.) The brief for the project was to create an ecommerce microsite for an existing company within Ponce City Market, that would cater to one of three personas provided to us. The microsite had to stay within the brand guidelines of the company and include existing products

The “Prestige” persona appealed to me, so I chose to build a microsite for Williams Sonoma, a brand that caters heavily to the high-end consumer. After studying their product mix, I realized that their coffee machinery and products were not being highlighted, and discovered that one of my favorite brands the Italian coffee roasters: Illy was one of their providers. Illy and Williams Sonoma are a match made in heaven, which I quickly realized after doing further research into the target markets and histories of each company.

70

Hours

30

Wireframes

33

Tea cups

100

Great Ideas

The Problem

Williams Sonoma needs to compete in the every growing coffee market, and with other brick and mortar, and online retailers selling high end coffee and coffee related products online. Williams Sonoma cannot produce its own coffee, machines, and coffee accessories, but can partner with an existing brand that aligns with its own, allowing the company to retain a loyal customer and create buzz.

The Solution

By partnering with one of an existing partner, the Italian roasting company, Illy and integrating a microsite into the Williams Sonoma online ecosystem, both Williams Sonoma and Illy will enhance their brand power, following, and ecommerce sales. By creating this microsite WS will cater to a popular need, feed the customer’s thirst for convenience, and meet the trends in online high end food and beverage ordering, all while retaining a loyal customer through loyalty programs and elevated customer service programs such as live chat. WS will offer the user further incentives such as quick reorder and automatic reordering, live-help for machine maintenance or online shopping issues, and video tutorials explaining how to make barista worthy drinks. The microsite will focus on a select group of Illy brand high quality coffees, machines, coffee makers and accessories and tools, that appeal to the Prestige Persona Paul. Paul will be pleased with the retro offerings, detailed product descriptions, high quality detailed images, characterful content, and reviews sections, as well as responsive site available on desktop and mobile devices.

My Reflections

Working on Crema was really fun! I built the wireframes and made a clickable prototype using Axure. It was the first time that I had used Axure, and really enjoyed learning a new tool that could help me in my UX process. I used the card sorting method in order to create the categories for my navigation, which was extremely interesting as well. I had never used this method before, and I found it to be extremely efficient and effective even with a varied sample of sorters; ranging from coffee addicts to people that are indifferent to the product. The project called for a lot of restraint with use of color and images, which I found a bit trying at first but then realised that it really aided in my thought process to eliminate those elements and allow the flow and ease of navigation to really shine through.