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The Toasted Marshmallow

A solo design sprint for a cozy cabin website.

MMT Comp 2.jpg

Overview

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About two years ago, I was contacted to create a logo for the Toasted Marshmallow cabin in Blueridge, GA. Two months ago, I was asked to create a website for the very same cabin in the new year, starting January 2021. And then a week before Christmas, the owners asked if I could have it done by Dec 30, 2020. Yikes.

 

But the clients are very nice and I have done work for them before. We sat down and outlined the MVP. ( Minimal viable product. I love using design anagrams!) From there, I structured this entire project like a design sprint and delivered a cozy website for a cozy cabin.

Problem Statement
Travelers want to take a trip somewhere beautiful, have the option to explore new places, and most want to bring their amazing dogs with them. How can we convince them that the Toasted Marshmallow will more than satisfy that wander lust? 

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Users and Audience

Travelers with a love for the outdoors, beer, and great views. Would like to appeal to ‘bouchie’ bloggers and instagram accounts to get more exposure for the brand.

 

Roles and responsibilities

I was the sole researcher, designer, and web-builder on this project.

 

Scope and Constraints

The time limit was one week, and due to COVID and the limited audience, it was difficult to find user’s to interview.

 

Tools Used

Adobe XD, PSD, AI, Wix

Design Sprint Plan

Schedule and plan for the design sprint.

Process 

The first sit down happened the night before the sprint began, when myself and the clients sat down to determine an MVP. The main reason they wanted a site was for people to know things, for the user’s to be drawn in, and book a stay.
It should have great photos of the truly amazing surroundings, highlight their amenities, and show them what is nearby to enjoy. Everything else, the bells and whistles, could be addressed after the New Year. I also asked my clients to define their target audience and created a proto-person:

TTM_Stakeholders_Notes.jpg

Notes from MVP meeting..

TTM Proto Persona.jpg

Proto-persona or target audience.

Day 1:

 

Branding & Research

The Toasted Marshmallow already had a very strong brand and presence on social media, so we had a solid base to go off of. We sat down to hammer out the details like colors and fonts and determined the photos we should use.

 

It should be noted that there will be a difference in social media photos and the website photos, as their social media is highly saturated, and we want to convey a more realistic view of the cabin via the website.

TTM_Branding.jpg
Poll_Examples.jpg

Poll and survey results.

TTM Guerilla noted.jpg

Guerilla testing notes.

Towards the end of the day, with my long-suffering roommates, who have helped with so much research in the last few months, agreed to do a quick card sorting activity with meI used the categories and terms the clients requested.

Card sorting results.

Style tile.

When starting the research, I posted a few polls, via Instagram and Facebook, for quantitative data. There was also some guerilla testing done, socially distanced of course. The sessions were very quick, only 3-5 minutes long and consisted of asking what people look for when searching for a cabin getaway. Some insights include:

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• People are very drawn in by the aesthetic of the cabin, and then the amenities.

• Several indicated that they wanted to know the local breweries and wineries and that it was a big part of choosing

where to go.

• The research also validated our approach to the photos, as they enjoyed instagram, but wanted more realistic

photos on the website.

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DAY 2:

 

Define 

I hunkered down with some coffee and began organizing and analyzing all my data. The first thing that came together was the user persona, based on the client’s defined audience and the data, which shows that women were mostly the ones who were blogging and posting, and so in many couples, they were the ones searching for places to stay, and confirming with their partners.

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Then I combined all the data from the various polls, surveys, and guerilla testing to make an affinity map, which helped to make this feature prioritization chart. I was able to define what the user needs to see first, and what is less important. 

TTM User Persona.png

User Persona

TTM_Affinity_W_Notes.jpg

Affinity Map

Problem Statement:

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" Travelers want to take a trip somewhere beautiful, have the option to explore new places, and most want to bring their amazing dogs with them. How can we convince them that the Toasted Marshmallow will more than satisfy that wander lust? "

Ideation 

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When we began discussing this site, the clients sent me some sites they enjoyed, and some notes about what they liked about them. I took it upon myself to take a closer look and conduct some quick heuristic analysis (apologies for the horrible handwriting, but it makes sense to me, and this was a sprint.

Heuristic evaluation notes.

And here we arrive to my favorite thing; sketching. It’s one of the most helpful brainstorming tools for my artistic soul, and it resulted in one idea that the clients, users, and myself really enjoyed. 

 

Sketches for the wire frames.

The horizontal book now banner, that added some color to the site, allowed the user to book their stay on every page, and was unique to the Toasted Marshmallow. It was also aggressively easy to spot.

TTM CTA.png
TTM CTA Hover.png

The Booking banner at the top of each page, under the navigation. Normal vs. Hover.

The last thing for today was to create the Site map, which would tell me the amount of pages I would be wireframing and testing tomorrow.

 

I drew from the card sorting activity, and using the results of the data showing that women were more likely to search, find, and choose the cabin, used a majority of the ideas that came from the ladies cardsorting.

TTM_Site_Map.jpg

Site Map

DAY 3:

Wireframing & Testing

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Using the sketches from the day before, I built a low-fi prototype for a testing plan put to together to determine if the site will be easy to navigate, and user's will be able to get around the site using the verb-age the clients had chosen.

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 I came away with some great insights about how to structure the page and make adjustments. Some insights included:

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“ I want to see pictures first, when I click on CABIN, so I can see the inside of the place. All of the text can be below it.’'

 

“ Seeing the blogs and stuff is cool, but I’m more interested in the beer and food, and how close it is.”

Lo-fi wireframes used for testing.

DAY 4:

Hi - Fi Wireframes 

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Fresh and well-rested, it was time to finalized the look of the website. Using the style tile from what seemed like ages ago, I applied it to the lo-fi wireframes and came away with some hi-fi images that I sent to the client. I consider myself lucky that the clients responded quickly, and approved the first round. I could move ahead and begin to build the website.