Highland Wholesale Foods Inc. is a food distribution company that had not made edits to its website since it was built in 2008.
They asked me to redesign their website and update some of the information on the site. When the new site launched a legitimate client made a form submission in the first day! Since then the site has generated numerous new clients.
After the website launched in August of 2020, they have brought me on as a full-time designer. Some of the interesting projects I have been working on include designing a whole new brand for their canned food, creating a solution for putting specification sheets online, and creating email marketing campaigns.
Desktop design and mobile
Green Acres Brand Design
Specification Sheet Project
Email Marketing
My Role:
UX Designer (team of one)
Duration:
One Year (April 2020 to Present)
Methods Used:
User Interviews, Heuristic Evaluation, Affinity Mapping, Comparative and Competitive Analysis, Feature Prioritization, User flows, Paper Prototype, Wireframes, Usability Testing, Final Design (Wix).
The Client:
Highland Wholesale Foods Inc. is a food distribution company that has been established since 1999. Through partnerships with distribution centers and export companies they provide value to food programs in the corrections industry, retail markets, non-profit food agencies, food banks, school programs, and other specialized markets.
The Opportunity:
Their website hasn't been updated since it was built circa 2008. Not only does the website require a facelift in it's visual design, but some of the written information on the site is out of date. It became my job to update the visual design and written copy.
Discovery Phase:
Heuristic Analysis
The first step of this design challenge was to go through the current website and identitfy the changes needed. At first glance it is clear that the whole website will require a total overhaul. Some of the copy is salvageable but it will also require some editing.
The landing page has alot of aesthetic components that need updating. For example the logo in the header is pixelated. A lot of the fonts are unnessarily small and not very readable. There are also too many buttons on the right hand side that are unnecessary to the business or simply don't work.
Many pages have issues where the content cannot be displayed and the content is out of date.
An important consideration was an updated feature for making contact with the business.
Creating an updated contact sheet of people working at the company was also a direct request from the client.
Discovery Phase:
Comparative & Competitive Analysis
Highland Wholesale is a company that works in a B2B framework. This fact presented a challenge for how to approach the layout of the website. Performing research on companies that work within their business model was appropriate to fromulating how to maximize reach.
Pod Foods is a technology-based food distribution company. They have the modern look and flow to their website that we wanted to achieve with the new website.
A contact submission form was another feature we wanted to replicate. Pacific Coast producers had a lot of different buttons that direct you to other departments.
The client also requested an updated contact list of employees.
Discovery Phase:
Interviews
To get an understanding of their approach to the business within the pandemic I sat down to interview a couple of employees internally.
Some of the main takeaways from those discussions were:
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Pivoting new business towards food banks
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Smaller discounters such as Grocery Outlet, Dollar Tree, etc.
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Maintain business with existing customers
Discovery Phase:
User Profiles
Research led to me
to create two user profiles
Current Clients:
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Have a relationship to Highland Wholesale
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Do not visit the website often
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Visit the website for contact information and address information
Potential Clients:
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Need to learn about Highland Wholesale
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Want to know products and services offered
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Need to trust Highland before proceeding to contact
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Requires easy access to contact information
Iteration Phase:
Feature Prioritization
This website needs a complete visual makeover so there weren't many features to make, per sé, but every existing page needed to be re-designed.
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Home page: including multiple calls to action and impact
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About page: that breaks down the info into bite-size chunks
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Products page: that showcases private labels and description of offerings
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Services page: offering classification and information
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Contacts: a list of significant employees that includes their email and also a form submission feature for people who don't know whom to contact
Final Design:
Features
Design for Impact
The Highland brand was missing from the old website. Part of my mission for this project was to display the physical quality of Highland. I took a couple of trips to the office to take photographs of the property (and the people). Displaying the trucks that Highland uses on a daily basis builds trust with potential and current clients.
Including the main points of the mission statement followed by another call to action in order to develop trust from clients.
Design for Information
The Highland brand was missing from the old website. Part of my mission for this project was to display the physical quality of Highland. I took a couple of trips to the office to take photographs of the property (and the people). Displaying the trucks that Highland uses on a daily basis builds trust with potential and current clients.
Green Acres Brand Design
New private label design for retail products.
Specification Sheets Project
When Highland wins a bid for a large amount of product from a client, the client requests the specification sheets of that product. Previously specification sheets were inaccessible and hard to produce in a timely manner. It became my responsibility to create a feature that allows for clients and Highland to find specification sheets in an online platform on the website.