Challenge
The Wandering Peacock-- a local pottery studio in Westfield, IN-- was long overdue for a website makeover. It needed new branding, updated content, and more effective design.
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Our team worked with the owner to create a new website that embodies her business and addressed all of her needs.
My Role
I acted as project manager on a team of 7 students as we completely redesigned a local pottery studio's website. I led meetings, delegated tasks, and kept the owner in the loop as we conducted market research, brainstormed features, developed wireframes, designed prototypes, and ran usability tests.
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I worked closely with the owner to define her business needs, build her branding, and address any questions that came up throughout the entire process.
What I learned
I kept in contact with the owner, and a year after launching the website, I realized that we needed to convert the site to a more user-friendly editing platform. The owner frequently adds new services and/or updates her prices, and it wasn't efficient for her to have to go through me.
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I taught myself how to use the WordPress website builder and converted our content to a new platform that gave her more agency over the site. This experience has taught me to consider the sustainability of a project in terms of internal usage and future updates.
The Wandering Peacock Website
The Client
Erin O'Rear opened the Wandering Peacock in 2012. Her bohemian studio is warm and colorful, with undercurrents of art therapy through every room. Erin is a very kind and free-spirited person who believes in going with the flow and finding healing through working with clay.
Old Website
Erin's old website was created for her by one of her students. The colors and overall energy of the website coordinated well with The Wandering Peacock's goal to be colorful and inclusive; however, there were severe layout issues, and much of the information was very outdated. She relies on her Facebook account for all of her marketing and customer relations.​
New Website
Our team initially built a website for The Wandering Peacock using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Almost a year after launch, I converted it to a WordPress site.
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Most of Erin's business comes from referrals and personal connections, so we filled her new website with photos and testimonials from her customers.
We chose a clean and simple theme, so that nothing would distract from the multicolored images. We incorporated interactive grid layouts for the gallery and services pages.
I had Erin send us text and images that she thought embodied her business, and we worked with her to develop the tagline: "Creative, Interactive, Calming," which inspired the overall branding and design.
Another large focus was responsive design for smaller devices, since her previous website was not mobile friendly.
The Design Process
I led all of our team meetings, delegated tasks to my teammates, and acted as the primary point of contact for the client, from concept to final product. I began this project by sitting down with Erin and learning about her business and her marketing needs.
I delegated tasks for evaluating The Wandering Peacock's current website and social media platforms, and then I led the team in a feature brainstorming session, followed by low fidelity wireframes.
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I taught myself how to use Adobe XD and passed on my knowledge to fellow teammates, so we could develop a high fidelity wireframe.
I got design input from the owner and then delegated more tasks for developing a prototype, such as: collection of media images, copy writing, page layouts, and JavaScript segments.
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Our team ran several usability tests, got more feedback from the owner, and then published the final website.
Later, I taught myself the GoDaddy Managed WordPress Dashboard and transferred her website to a more guided editing platform.