Reflecting the craft and innovation of an iconic brand online
Kohler, a kitchen and bath industry leader, had an outdated web presence that did not reflect it's market position. My team and I went to work on reigniting the brand through a responsive site redesign.
What we inherited
The existing site was difficult to navigate, introduced unnecessary sales funnel roadblocks, had an outdated visual design approach and accessibility issues.
Discovery and research
I started by analyzing the entire Kohler ecosystem, conducting market and customer research and evaluating the site experience. A competitive analysis helped highlight the opportunities a site redesign presented for Kohler.
My team and I visited Kohler showrooms, led interviews with staff and studied analytics data. I conducted a UX audit to identify usability and accessibility gaps, design inconsistencies and actionable takeaways for our redesign effort.
Research insights guided our strategy definition, information architecture, user experience, visual design and development of the new site.
Strategy definition
Armed with discoveries from research, I helped craft a design strategy that focused on two key customer journeys: exploratory and task oriented.
I then expanded on our strategy with journey maps that described key milestones and included design and content guidelines as well as inspirational examples.
I summarized our user experience strategy in guiding UX principles that grounded our information architecture, content strategy and design efforts.
Improving site architecture
To ensure that the benefits of proposed information architecture updates were clear, I highlighted significant changes in a sitemap and included notes with our rationale.
The site was difficult to navigate and included numerous sales funnel roadblocks. I reduced the number of pathways to products, while making them more clear.
Site visitors found existing filters and content hierarchy confusing. I created detailed user flows to show how we will eliminate redundant steps. This helped Kohler stakeholders grasp the scope of the changes and get behind our approach.
Responsive design
During this phase, I worked closely with sales, design and content teams on a modular system that allowed for flexible page layouts while maintaining global consistency.
I included detailed notes that accounted for the large number of product variations and options in Kohler’s catalog.
To ensure the redesigned site would work well on all devices, I optimized content and interface elements for tablet and mobile screens. I then tested and validated the wireframes before handing them off for final design and development.
Outcome
The redesigned site is responsive, highlights Kohler’s strengths, has a simplified navigation, clear sales funnel and is built on a flexible modular template framework.
Since the launch of the redesigned site, Kohler reported a significant increase in showroom appointments and site visitors going through the entire marketing funnel.
