Ellen Michel Art School

Website redesign to improve user acquisition and conversions and ultimately increase revenue.

MY ROLE

UX/UI Lead

Design Implementation

Strategy Influence

Stakeholder Management

TOOLS

Figma
Maze
Illustrator
Photoshop
Wix

PROJECT GOAL

This project focused on developing the Ellen Michel Art School website with usability and accessibility in mind. The new design aimed to enhance Artst’s digital presence and generate revenue through student acquisition and artwork sales.

MY SOLUTION

I led product initiatives to boost the brand and establish a solid digital presence. The website redesign featured an improved layout, streamlined navigation, user-friendly flows, and clear calls to action. As a result, we achieved a 10x increase in the conversion rate during the first week of the launch.

PROBLEM

Ellen's Art Studio offers authentic art tutoring but needs help attracting new students, and sales are declining. The website is overcrowded, making it difficult for users to find crucial information, resulting in high bounce and low conversion rates.

01 DISCOVER

I conducted a Website Audit and Content Inventory to evaluate the current state of the Ellen Michel Art School website. After analysing the data from Google Analytics, I identified several issues related to the website's content, visual appeal, and user experience. While usability testing is typically the next step, it was clear that the website was broken, so I decided to start the UX design process from scratch.

Competitive & Comparative Analysis showed what other similar businesses are doing and where are the gaps in the market.

Google Analytics showed that the average pages per session, bounce rate, and conversion rate were way out of line with industry standards.

My research highlighted the improvements we needed to focus on:

Low avg. pages per session 

Opportunities

  • Improve your navigation.

  • Create compelling and relevant content.

  • Leverage social media to drive traffic to the website.

High bounce rate 

Opportunities

  • Provide information in line with people's needs.

  • Improve visual appeal and user experience.

Low conversion rate 

Opportunities

  • Conduct UX research.

  • Apply 'the power of white space'. 

  • Design a user-friendly CTA.

02 DEFINE

Engaging with Ellen's students helped align design decisions with user needs and expectations, enhancing the website's value and usability.

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

People need relevant and easily accessible information about Ellen’s art studio to commit to enrolling in art classes.

03  DEVELOP

Through a thorough website audit and research, we identified a significant amount of redundant information. To better align with users' needs and expectations, we streamlined the information architecture, reducing it from 70 pages to 29 pages of concise, easy-to-navigate content.

The sitemap shows how the Art School website was intertwined with Ellen's personal site for her poetry and art. Additionally, eCommerce functions were split across both sites, making them difficult to locate.

Original Sitemap

The new research-driven sitemap improved navigation by intuitively providing essential information, improving the overall shopping experience, and leading visitors to conversion.

New Sitemap

It was designed to make the information clear and more intuitive.

New Navigation bar

04  DELIVER

UI frames were based on extensive research, ensuring that user requirements and business objectives were aligned.

  • Information was made clear and accessible to users.

  • The UI incorporated brand colours and moods to reflect the artist's character and artistic style.

  • Consistency in UI components improved usability.

  • A new navigation bar made Ellen's artwork and other point-of-sale items more visible, providing a streamlined shopping experience and easy conversions.

IMPLEMENTATION

Frames were linked into a prototype to start testing, and after a few rounds of iteration, a new design was ready for implementation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Continuously monitor user feedback and iterate based on their feedback.

  • Improve SEO to boost online visibility, drive more traffic and increase sales.

  • Tailor social media channels to showcase promotions and studio updates, enhancing brand connection and customer engagement.

  • Measure website success by agreed KPIs, bounce rate, conversion rate, customer satisfaction, and revenue increase.

LEARNINGS & TAKEAWAYS

  • UX practice is a powerful tool for creating assumption-free products that align with user needs and foster meaningful connections between people and brands.

  • Always talk to your customers to understand what needs to be designed and corrected. Listen, observe, reflect.

  • Stakeholder management skills can take us far in building products that exceed expectations and build relationships with the client that last.

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