PREMISE
Role:
UX Designer
Tools Used:
Squarespace, Photoshop, Lightroom
I was approached by the owners of Fields Handcrafted to give their website a better user experience and improve SEO.
Fields Handcrafted creates beautiful handmade furniture, and I wanted to make sure their website reflected the quality of their work. I did this by adding in alt text and page descriptions for every site page and product, improving the layout and experience of the custom orders page, and re-designing the homepage to showcase their products better.
Gordon and Haley create and sell amazing products, and I wanted to make sure their website fully provided that experience of craftsmanship.
UX Designer
Tools Used:
Squarespace, Photoshop, Lightroom
I was approached by the owners of Fields Handcrafted to give their website a better user experience and improve SEO.
Fields Handcrafted creates beautiful handmade furniture, and I wanted to make sure their website reflected the quality of their work. I did this by adding in alt text and page descriptions for every site page and product, improving the layout and experience of the custom orders page, and re-designing the homepage to showcase their products better.
Gordon and Haley create and sell amazing products, and I wanted to make sure their website fully provided that experience of craftsmanship.
PROCESS
Fields Handcrafted wanted to acquire more online traffic and sales; most of their business was happening through word-of-mouth and friends of friends.
After chatting with the owners, I decided on what the course of action would be:
After chatting with the owners, I decided on what the course of action would be:
- Adding alt text and site descriptions to every product on the site. This looked like focusing on keywords for each piece of furniture and making sure the alt text represented it well and taking a blurb from the product description to insert into the site description.
- Re-arranging the homepage to better display the different pieces of furniture and the process that FH follows.
- Re-doing the custom orders page. This involved me photographing their wood samples in my homemade DIY lightbox (after having to lock it in a room away from my cats who saw it as their new toy) and showcasing the different wood and finish types so that customers could have a good idea of what they might want for their custom furniture piece.
After I finished these various tasks, I was happy with the work that I'd done. The addition of alt text helped not only SEO but accessibility - keeping in line with the principle that designing for accessibility means designing better overall. With the alt text for products, someone using a screen-reading technology or something similar would be able to understand what's being shown on the website and wouldn't have to be left out of the site's experience.
Alt text and site descriptions help with SEO because 1) extra keywords help sites get picked up by search engine crawlers and 2) site descriptions help a page stand out on a search engine result page.
Alt text and site descriptions help with SEO because 1) extra keywords help sites get picked up by search engine crawlers and 2) site descriptions help a page stand out on a search engine result page.
I'm still working with Fields Handcrafted and I hope to boost their 'findability' by keeping up with SEO - as well as continuously making sure the user experience is as easy and engaging as possible.