UX-Design
E-Commerce
Mud Foods is an award-winning pie company based nearby in Midhurst. They came to us with an existing site, and a rapidly growing customer base. The problem? This site began as a means for customers to find Mud at farmers markets, but it had transitioned into an e-commerce store, selling and delivering pies directly to customers. User experience was poor, there was too much friction between arriving on the site and adding a product to the cart, so conversion was low.
Our task was to redevelop the site with the aim to increase conversion. This would be achieved through:
- Improved user experience
- Retargeting
- Good on page SEO techniques
User Experience
The biggest focus for this website build was to provide a smooth user experience. So, the site was redesigned to showcase products first of all, allowing users to add products to the basket with a single click from the home page.
Website speed is an essential element of user experience. The new website uses modern javascript framework and jamstack methodology to reduce user wait time, with maximum image optimisation.
Importantly, the new site was designed mobile-first, so it’s just as easy to make a purchase on a mobile phone.
The website visuals have been designed to guide users into easier purchasing. An example of this is the introduction of coloured borders around different products, to give an immediate impression of the product type. Green borders represent a vegetarian pie, brown for steak, yellow for cheese and so on. We also implemented a tag filtering technique on the product listing, using the same colour coordination to quickly narrow down products.
Adding to the visual user experience, written information about the products is easily accessible on the product page, but hidden at first so as not to overwhelm the user.
We place a lot of emphasis on the user’s journey, it’s important to be as easy as possible for them to continue shopping. The checkout uses a drawer so that it doesn’t interrupt adding items to the cart.
The checkout experience uses Shopify. We are proud Shopify partners as it is well tested, cross platform and highly optimised for conversion. The checkout provides options for all the modern payment methods such as Apple Pay, in order to provide convenience to the customer.
Retargeting is another technique we implemented to increase conversion. Retargeting creates opportunities to complete a checkout user when they have failed to convert the first time.
- Exit intent reminders In life, people easily get distracted, and users can forget to checkout. By checking for certain conditions, the site can predict if someone is about to leave and offer up a quick reminder that they still have items waiting in the basket.
- Abandoned cart email If the exit intent didn’t catch them, we can still remind users to checkout. The abandoned cart email can be launched, and the content of the email is tailored to the user and the products they showed interest in.
- Social advertising By recording the items users are most interested in, social adverts can be specifically tailored to individual users.
"When we set about refreshing the Mud website, we had several key objectives that were crucial to us and the advancement of our website and e-commerce store, Rococo grasped the very essence of our goals and ambitions at a very early stage and were offering ideas and solutions that clearly demonstrated a greater talent and understanding than any other developer that we’d approached.
Mud’s objectives were to modernise the website, making it relevant for today as well as tomorrow. We also wanted the site to convey the brand image and identity and to be quite unique to us; not another off the shelf template, and the site had to be user friendly, easily navigable and fast. Rococo’s keen understanding, enthusiasm and unerring commitment to delivering perfection to the project exceeded our expectations and the lines of communication were excellent at every stage.
Today, there’s a raft of off the shelf templates and tools allowing even the most inexperienced designer to build a website, making it as easy as building Lego. However, the difference with Rococo is that they are the architects who create the templates. Their technical skill, knowledge and understanding of web design and development make them a formidable partner for any business that needs a unique and cutting-edge website that delivers the results that are needed in today’s competitive ecommerce environment.
Working with Rococo has been a revolution. They’ve been dynamic, inspiring and fun to work with and they’ve delivered on every aspect of the brief, but the one thing that has impressed me most is that they never once said, ‘that can’t be done’ rather, their attitude is ‘leave it with us, we’ll find a solution and make that work’, now that’s a rare commodity and I’m proud that Rococo are in my corner and continue to support Mud’s ongoing ambitions."
SEO
A website is a core part of any Search Engine Optimisation campaign, and on-page SEO was vital throughout the Mud Foods site development.
- Images have been optimised for all devices, allowing for great visuals without slow page loading times.
- Google crawls websites mobile-first, the same way we designed the website. Anything that can be done on desktop can be done on mobile.
- Areas with a low amount of content have been targeted to include extra content, allowing for more SEO opportunities.
- Meta data has been created, not only for search engines but for the purposes of social media sharing.
Success
Using a modern javascript framework to build a static site on top of Shopify while keeping on top of the ever changing world of food retail has been a challenge but has allowed a level of customisation and performance out of reach of a standard Shopify theme. All while maintaining the excellent backend logistical and inventory management support Shopify allows.
The site has achieved a visually pleasing aesthetic, focusing on the products while delivering a fast, easy user experience.