Introduction

UpFresh, the new brand for Fermette Group, a Belgian B2B that offers a wide range of food-related products and services, approached Skinn, a branding and design agency, to create a new website as part of a rebranding operation. The challenge was to create a new, concise, and understandable branding story that would showcase the new UpFresh brand and its products and services, including deli-meats, cheeses, salads, catering, meats, and service-concepts like curated recipes and consulting. The website also needed to support an ecommerce platform for B2B customers.

As an experienced UX Designer working freelance for Skinn, my role was to facilitate a workshop with the client, define the user stories, create the sitemap and wireframes for both desktop and mobile, and iterate until we had a final prototype that satisfied the client's needs.

Problem

UpFresh needed a new website as part of a rebranding operation from Fermette to UpFresh. The website had to showcase the new brand story and the company's products and services, which ranged from deli-meats to catering and consulting services. The challenge was to create a website that presented all the different departments in a uniform and understandable manner to the public.

Services Rendered

As part of the project, I provided several UX design services, including workshop facilitation, brainstorming with the client and team, information architecture, wireframing, and desktop and mobile prototyping. These services were aimed at ensuring that the website design met the client's needs and satisfied the requirements of the target audience.

Process

We started by holding a workshop with Fermette's management at their offices with myself and Skinn's digital team. During the workshop, we created personas for the target audience, which helped us understand their needs, goals, and pain points. We also created an inventory of all the content, services, and conversion goals that needed to be included on the website.

Next, I created a concrete inventory of User Stories based on the requirements that we had gathered during the workshop. The User Stories helped us to focus on the user's perspective and ensured that the website design was user-centric.

Based on the validated personas and User Stories, I then created a sitemap, which defined the site's hierarchy and navigation. The sitemap helped us to organize the content in a logical manner and ensure that the user could find what they were looking for quickly and easily.

Fermette was a large conglomerate company with many different departments that all had to be represented on the new UpFresh website. It was up to Skinn and myself to derive a logical framework to present all these departments in a uniform and understandable manner to the public.

Using the sitemap as a guide, I created clickable wireframe-prototypes for both desktop and mobile using Adobe XD. The wireframes allowed us to visualize the layout and flow of the website and make any necessary changes before moving on to the final design.

After an iterative feedback process, we finalized the wireframes and handed them over to Skinn's graphic designers and developers to build the final site and B2B ecommerce platform.

Results

The website launched successfully, and both the client and the agency were very satisfied with the results. The website showcased UpFresh's new brand story and products and services in a visually appealing manner. The ecommerce platform supported B2B customers and increased UpFresh's online presence.

Conclusion

The UX design process played a crucial role in the success of the project. By creating personas, User Stories, and wireframes, we were able to focus on the user's needs and ensure that the website design was user-centric. The sitemap helped us to organize the content in a logical manner, and the clickable wireframe-prototypes allowed us to visualize the layout and flow of the website. The final result was a website that satisfied the client's needs and showcased their new UpFresh brand story, products, and services in a visually appealing and user-friendly manner.

The challenge of presenting a large conglomerate company with many different departments in a uniform and understandable manner to the public was successfully addressed through the UX design process, resulting in a clear and organized website that effectively communicates the company's message and offerings.

In conclusion, the successful outcome of this project was achieved through a collaborative approach between the client and Skinn's digital team, with the UX design process at the core of the website's development.