Ally Coffee approached me to redesign their aging website to provide information about the green coffees they import, as well as news, and information about educational opportunities offered. Together we developed a modern, responsive site showcasing their products and services.

Process

Ally Coffee and I used surveys and user data from the existing site during the discovery phase to determine the site needs and goals for the project. We determined that Ally had two primary user groups—buyers interested in raw coffee beans and baristas looking for information and educational opportunities. Both groups needed an easy way to filter the coffees Ally offered to find information on specific beans and to order samples. Additionally the detailed information pages needed to be print friendly since buyers regularly printed these pages for reference. Last of all, Ally needed a blog option to post news articles and information about events.

With this information we developed a vision statement to help keep our efforts focused as we mapped the journey of the two primary personas. These journey maps helped us define questions and needs our personas might have at each stage and informed our decisions for the site structure and content. I then worked with Ally Coffee to define what information was needed on the site and develop a content strategy to enable writers to write text for each section that met our goals. We simplified the process to find beans and order samples by integrating a powerful filtering engine that allowed users to quickly find products using a combination of search terms and predefined categories. To order samples, users simply had to click the order samples button accessible both in the product listing and in the product detail page which would redirect them to a pre-filled form to submit their request.

The visual design for the site provided an opportunity to evolve the Ally brand away from a sterile corporate look to better appeal to an audience made up largely of young adults. We made use of original photography and the brand’s bold blue to create a dynamic and engaging visual experience that maintained the essence of the Ally brand.

Result

The resulting website accomplishes the project goals by providing filterable listings for Ally’s coffees with easy sample ordering, concise presentation of educational opportunities, and an easy-to-use system to create news articles.