Breathing Life Into a Consulting Website. A UI Case Study.
These days it’s becoming increasingly easier for folks with no web design experience to create a website. One can use Wix, Squarespace and the like to really bring professional aesthetics to any small business or personal brand. While no code website tools are becoming more readily available for consumers they still don’t guarantee that visitors are going to receive a professional UX experience. Small business’ and individuals taking on the task of building a their own website may not understand how their customizations may effect their customers experience when arriving at their page.
I recently was tasked to redesign a website for a small one woman consulting firm called Coco Canary Consulting. The current site had been put together on Wordpress and while by no means was it horrible, it did feel like a standard do it yourself website. What ways could I give the site some polish? Is there a way to not only take it from it’s Wordpress template state to professional consultant’s website but beyond?
My initial sketches took from the industry standard landing page with a nav bar with the logo in the top left and global nav to the top right. The hero section would contain some kind of stock photo with the company credo super imposed on top of it. Each section following it would be sepatrated by white and colored blocks.
From my sketches, I started building in Figma to create the landing page. As I started to build, I wanted to consider ways I could bring some life to to the site. Given stock photos have become fairly common on business websites, I thought illustrations could offer a nice personal touch. I chose purple and white boxes to complement the company’s current logo and palette while adding some icons to illustrate some of the services offered. The site was heading in the right direction, but after completing two thirds of the landing page I felt like I could get more creative with it.
I wanted to create excitement around the services offered instead of a standard and predictable frontpage. Because the company prioritizes social justice and racial equality, I wanted to showcase this in way that would really engage visitors. I expanded on the color palette to include some brighter colors and some abstract shapes as containers for text and illustrations. The shapes were arranged so they cascaded down the page while text and service information would sit in between. All of this done so while making sure that information traveled down the page in a cohesive manor and avoiding cognitive fatigue.
The final product delivers a creative way to showcase the companies services while still maintaining a professional appearance. There’s no reason businesses should feel constrained to industry standard templates if they don’t have to and in this Coco Canary’s case, there’s room to color a bit outside the lines. I think the new landing page accomplished the goal of fun and professional.
