NW Seat Covers

Audience

Vehicle owners across Canada and the United States.

Mandate

Rebrand corporate identity, conduct User Experience testing, write content and redesign existing website.

Branding

Their old logo was replaced with their new logo. They also didn't have a slogan, so I suggested one for them, "The #1 Choice for Custom-Fit Seat Covers", which not only describes what they do, but also positions them as an industry leader.

I didn't want to change things too drastically, as they have an established reputation with a relatively large customer base, so I wanted them to still be recognizable to customers. Therefore, the same colours and fonts were retained.

Old Website

The old home page was relatively clean and modern, but far too text-heavy, almost as if it was "stuffed" with keywords. Some of its top menu bar and footer elements were confusing or redundant (nomenclature such as "My Vehicle", Payments, contact info hard to find, missing store hours, etc.).

New Website

Requirements & Constraints

Redesigning the new website was striking a balance between pleasing several people: 1) Stakeholders, who wanted customers to be able to choose their products by vehicle make/model, or by fabric type; 2) Internet marketing specialists (Graphically Speaking, a reputed Vancouver-based digital marketing agency whom they work with), who emphasized the importance of having enough text for SEO purposes; 3) the Web Developer, whose technical constraints guided my design; and finally, 4) the Visual & UX Designer (myself), where I strived for a balance between visual aesthetics and the practical aspects of user needs.

Understanding the User

I placed mages of their most popular vehicles, to emphasize the customized nature of their products, and to lead into the Vehicle Selector field. Keeping in mind how readers scan rather than read text on the Web, I wanted to get rid of the text-heavy paragraphs, and replace them with lots images and descriptive text, to entice customers to actually read the text, and quickly understand the key points.

Visual Design

NW Seat Covers sells well-constructed, high quality products, so I wanted to reflect that in the website's look and feel through contemporary sophistication and minimalism. Since their customers are an equal gender split, I wanted to keep their look gender neutral.

Photography

Previously there was no visual nor verbal explanation of the categories, so I also used the company's photography studio to photograph their fabrics by category, to allow customers to better understand the types of fabrics in each category, so that they could choose a product by fabric type. Customers could also choose to see all the fabrics by clicking the "See All Our Fabrics" button.

Emphasizing USP

It was also important to describe what makes NW Seat Covers unique, and why customers should choose their product over competitors, so I included a "25 years" seal to highlight their years of experience, as well as video and images to reinforce what gives the brand their competitive edge.

Testimonials

The number of testimonials visible on the Home Page was reduced to save precious real estate; if customers want to real more reviews, they could click on the link to "See all reviews".

Responsive Design

Mobile and tablet versions were made as well, keeping all the same elements, features and content as in the desktop version. The images for the web banner were customized for mobile, and stacked vertically. The clickable areas were made tall enough to easily click, even for the largest fingers.

Tools

Wireframes: Balsamiq (to come)

2D mockups: Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch

Interactive mockups: Axure (to come)