Case Study
Volk Optical is the premier designer and manufacturer of the highest quality ophthalmic lenses that are used in assessment, monitoring and surgical environments. We were brought in to help completely reimagine both the brand and the website, adding value at every step.
Volk Optical * Mentor, OH
Design Strategy & UX Lead * Stakeholder Workshops * Discovery Research & Analysis * Information Architecture * Concept Ideation * Wireframing * Mood Boards * Creative Direction
Microsoft Excel * Microsoft PowerPoint * Adobe InDesign * Adobe Photoshop * Sketch
To start, we held workshops with project stakeholders to gain insight into their existing customer research, product line, marketing funnel and philanthropic mission.
We also simultaneously conducted user research in the form of contextual inquiry with the product fulfillment team to understand the pain points involved in the existing manual order filling process and the unique checkout process requirements so that we could automate those processes by integrating the future site with an ERP system.
Utilizing the previously completed qualitative data provided to us by the client, we created personas for each of the 4 main target users highlighting each group’s main motivations, goals and pain points and content considerations to address them.
Our research findings were synthesized into the following journey maps for each persona and socialized to the teams and stakeholders. The information we gathered defined the content we created for the site. I facilitated design workshops with our business stakeholders to define what information customers need in order to move from product awareness, to comparison, through purchase and implementation and finally identifying what support resources each group would need after purchase.
The overall architecture of the site changed several times throughout our early stages as we iterated with the project stakeholders on how products should be segmented, identifying content to address products by diagnostic and treatment types, disease type and eye anatomy. New content and pages required to address our user needs were documented and identified for our writing team.
All of our research and discovery work was then distilled and translated into detailed wireframes for both the consumer facing website and distributor ordering portal. Major functional components, content areas and page templates were identified and worked through in low to mid fidelity to facilitate rapid iteration and create consensus among stakeholders prior to progressing into specific visual design choices.
Wireframes were also created for unique checkout process flows and forms to illustrate and formalize what we were building for both project stakeholders and the development team. The process was divided into 5 logical steps and designed to significantly streamline the existing process and decrease cart abandonment.
Mood boards illustrating the proposed color palette, typography and imagery style were created for the approval of the project stakeholders to set the tone of voice and establish a general visual style and what to expect for the new website’s visual / UI design. This helped establish stakeholder buy-in and alignment on the visual design before even beginning that phase of the project.
Utilizing the discovery research, analysis, UX and content work we completed for the client, the final visual design and development of this project were executed by a 3rd party.
