Project Description
Avtex has seen an ever-increasing number of visitors and needed to update the website. Mobile traffic increased steadily, which meant a design overhaul was needed to create a web experience as exceptional as their consultancy. As a full-service Customer Experience (CX) partner, they create exceptional CX solutions for their clients. The previous site version needed a design, content, and strategy update. With the business growth goals in mind, this redesign transformed the website into a responsive design that told their story consistently, provided informative content, showcased company events, and more.
The Challenge
The look and feel of the website needed an update to look more current along with an updated site architecture. The site needed a better organized navigation so users could more efficiently find what they were looking for. There was no shortage of content because the site was updated on a regular basis, the problem was that it was not always easy to find. No one will argue that having a lot of quality site content is key, but too much uncategorized content can be overwhelming. The company offers so many solutions, has so many valuable resources, publishes a great deal of informative posts on a regular basis, so it’s only natural that things needed to be restructured a bit so there wasn’t too much content presented at one time. Focusing on personas and how they would access content allowed for a deeper understanding of architecture and how to organize content.
Previous design focused on desktop viewing, which was very limiting so updated design was built to be responsive. Being accessible on all devices was top priority. As the organic traffic increased, so did the device types they were using to view the site. As customer experience professionals, it was absolutely necessary to provide users with optimal viewing.
The project was user focused of course, but part of the design challenge was making sure in-house teams could find content (and direct potential customers to important website content like the events page), update content when needed, and ensure the website and the CRM system worked hand-in-hand to carefully track and analyze business data.
Project Goals
The goal of the redesign project was to create a web experience for Avtex users that was as exceptional as Avtex’s technology solutions and partnerships while increasing business revenue. Part of making this happen was to making sure that content was organized in the most efficient way so users could find what they were looking for. Capturing information of leads and convert them into a prospect, is the primary focus on the website’s ability to convert, and this is where business revenue comes in.
The site needed to be manageable and scalable for the internal marketing team who was constantly adding new content. The CMS allowed for easy content additions and editing.
User goals were first priority in the redesign:
- Learn about company – “Who is Avtex? Why should I work with them?”.
- User research and access to resource library – learn about technologies and solutions provided by Avtex. Gain industry expertise by reading informative articles, whitepapers, or attending events.
- Success Stories – learn about successful CX solutions and how they impacted businesses.
- Schedule a demo – easily contact an expert and get a demo scheduled through contact form, phone, or social media channel (contact information should be easily accessible and clear what next steps are).
- Find/Register for an event – events section in which the users will be able to view the upcoming events, archived events and fill out form to register
- Career research – users will be able to view the current and job openings with a link to start the application process.
- General contact inquiries – simple form provided so the user could enter contact information and details about the inquiry and site needed to capture contact information for leads and put those into CRM.
- Consistent experience across all devices – users need to accomplish tasks no matter which device(s) they are using to access the website.
From a business perspective, the site needs to function well for day to day tasks.
- Measure increase of organic traffic growth to understand user needs and content planning.
- Support marketing strategies to increase conversion rate. Email campaigns, events, podcasts, webinars, premium content download, and blog posts were marketing channels which brought site visitors and and attract quality leads.
- Website content is easy to add an update.
Role in Project
I had the privilege of leading the design and front-end development effort. As lead designer, I developed concepts that evolved into a launchable product. After performing a content audit and studying user personas, the design work began. I did the majority of the design in the browser, so there was not much time spent on static mockups. Creating and referencing style tiles throughout the design process allowed for consistent design in the browser.
The Avtex website was built using Sitecore. Using efficient design and expert Avtex developers, we were able to stay within a tight deadline, create a strong initial product and rapidly grow and iterate as business needs changed and increased. To save time, I coded right in the browser to create a working prototype. This saved front-end development time, which was both cost and time effective. The development team could then use the live prototype to integrate with Sitecore.
During the design process, it was important to check the design regularly and how it was looking on various devices. After the initial launch, every part of a visitor’s experience looked great and functioned consistently across devices.
Tools used for the prototype:
- Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop for style tiles
- Minimal php (“includes” to build templates)
- Bootstrap
- Simple vanilla JavaScript
- jQuery
Bootstrap 3 was used as a framework to get the team up and running quickly. Using only what was needed, and applying custom styling, his framework made different layouts and adjustments easy to do and were done on the fly. Taking a modular approach with the prototype, reflected the approach the developers took with modules in their development process.
During the project, and after initial launch, SEO was top of mind. During content audit and when adding to the site, I was able to do basic optimization. To continue with SEO, consultants were used to bring it to the next level. Regular content updates such as posts, whitepapers, video, etc. were in the long term SEO plan and this had an impact on organic traffic.
The Approach
The website is only as good as the people who contribute to it. It’s absolutely essential to continuously improve things for users, or follow-up with inquiries, and maintain the customer focused relationship outside of digital communication. If a website isn’t content focused, it isn’t going to provide the needed value. I truly believe the design was the easy part 🙂 The marketing team worked hard to create content and campaigns which was instrumental to success. Premium content was essential things like video and whitepapers had to entice site visitors.
Conversions are goals set for inbound (content) marketing campaigns. Monitoring this goal helps measure changes in the quality of traffic. Between marketing efforts and the site redesign, there was often a double digit increase in conversions. More that 45% more quality leads came from the contact page with this updated design. They were actively engaging on the site and were interested in working with Avtex.
From a business perspective, it’s pretty obvious that the website is a sales tool. One of the most important, if not the most important, is to sell services by engaging users and making connections. The site converts site visitors from prospective to actual customers which is key to maintaining business growth. Simplified navigation, clear calls-to-action, and helpful resources, all giving decision makers the tools they need to find a solutions partner to help them with their customer experience goals.
Two main adjustments was how the content was organized. Two different Organized by Solutions and Technologies. Depending on the type of visitor, they may be more technical and looking for a technical solution or technical know-how on how to get a solution implemented. Another user may be all about how to
This may fall under the User Experience category, because there was an emphasis on user personas in the beginning stages of the project. Also there was a lot of user interactions that were planned out. However, there was a lot of design concepting at the beginning before building the prototype. I figured that the examples shown below are what viewers may expect for website design examples.
