Granite Systems
Website Rebuild
2024
Granite Systems came to me in January this year for a redevelopment of their website. It lacked brand, CTA, and the whole site was very generic, and not representative of a company that leads the UK in Granite and synthetic stone market.
Their poor outward appearance, bad SEO and lack of brand identity was not only making the company “forgettable” but also contributing to footfall, which had dropped more than 40% YOY since 2019.
Problem
→ Granite Systems' site was dated, lacking identity, and appearing poorly in Google Searches, despite being a leader in the UK's Granite Supply Chain.
→ Granite needed to increase their brand perception, as even in local searches the brand did not show up.
Approach & Solution
→ I conducted a site audit to reveal no brand, poor copy, linking that sends traffic off-site, and out of date tap targets.
→ I trimmed back the site navigation to reduce complexity, and avoid user curiosity and keep them on track.
→ Created a quoting tool that helped streamline the customer's quoting experience, allowing them to receive a rough price without a home visit, helping Granite allocate their resources better.
→ Implemented a clearer colour chart, on site, rather than leading customers off site, and forcing encouraging them to look elsewhere.
→ Using progressive disclosure so that users understand what they need from a material, rather than looking at all of them at once.
→ I refined the user flow to only include necessary main navigation.
→ I implemented a brand presence to help encourage trust in the userm and also encourage recognition in the future.
Role
Web Design
Brand Design
SEO
Trimming the Fat from the Site Layout and Addressing The initial issues.
Originally, when the low amount of traffic eventually got the the landing page, they were met with a forgettable homepage. When you land on the site, it told customers nothing about the company and what they did.
The original site layout had so many options that users often didn’t know where to go, or where to find what they were looking for. It also contained a special offers tab - Granite has NEVER offered special offers. There was no call to action either. From a UI standpoint, the alignment was also poor, and there was no brand - how would people remember it, even if they wanted to?
The original Granite Systems website lander.
The proposed site layout following discussion and the original site audit.
Using Strong Visuals to help Customers Visualise The materials in their Own Space
On the previous web build, Customers had to imagine what their worktop would look like, and were only given the sample image. By showing this in context, this should improve conversions and help users narrow their choices down much easier.
Customers don't need the exact details to the material, how its made and where it comes from, unless they want it. Granite Systems specifically noted that they prefer a small paragraph, and fact list, versus a long spiel about the material.
I also wanted to implement a wish-list feature for this, so that users would be able to save their favourite options, but budgetary restraints didn't allow for this.
The key to the material pages was to show an inital sample, a baseline of information, and show the sample in situ. This helps customers visualise their own kitchen more than just the colour swatches.
Creating a Robust Quoting Tool to Speed up the Process of Quoting New Enquiries
In order to aid the quoting process, time spent calculating prices, and home visits that lead to dead ends, we designed a quoting tool that gave the exact details that customers could fill out, allowing Granite to remotely quote the correct prices of the products.
All the information from the quoting tool allow Granite to quote jobs efficiently so that customers have a costing idea before confirming the job. It implements guide to ensure the customer is completing it correctly.
Using Progressive Disclosure to Show Users Options, Whilst Not Overwhelming Them.
Across a variety of brands, Granite offers more than 500 different colours of worktops. If we were to show this as a list view, not only would it take a long time to filter through, users would be shopping entirely on aesthetics versus what their requirements are.
For example, a user could fall in love with a colour of worktop that doesn't match her needs, adding to frustration - they've just spent 30 minutes looking at every worktop, and she's discovered that it doesn't match with her requirements.
The below flow aims to rectify that.
The main flow of a user using the site and the information attained on each page.
Wireframe structure of the user flowing through the site as per the map.
Catering to Savvy, Researched Shoppers, and also Clueless Shoppers.
Some people shop specifically for the colour, or materials, and others shop for what meets their needs best. To help save time on this we built a small questionnaire on the materials page that customers could take while browsing.
Whilst also creating a way to investigate their needs from a worktop, this also cuts down wasted time by sales reps figuring out the needs of the client, and gives them an accurate answer to cull their options, making for an easier sale (the paradox of choice).
Implementing a quiz feature on the materials page helps users find the exact worktop material that matches their requirements, making things more effecient when it comes to sales - be it in the showroom or after receiving a quote.
