Spyderzone Canada
Helping a small business grow and thrive
Client: Jomar Motorsports
Role: UI/UX Designer, Project Manager
Year: June 2017 – April 2018
www.spyderzone.ca
UI/UX Design / E-Commerce / Project Management / Brand Implementation
Spyderzone is a small business located in Saint-Jérôme, Québec, who help motorcycle riders be safer and more visible on the road. They complete various customizations including painting, installing custom lighting kits, providing accessories, and more. They are one of the only businesses in Québec to provide these services for Spyder and Ryker motorcycles.
A shift in focus
Initially, the owners of Spyderzone were concerned that the language customers chose during checkout (English or French) was not transferring when they were pushed to PayPal to complete their purchase. However, during the kick-off meeting, other issues were uncovered. None of the products were organized into categories, but grouped into one major category of “products,” making it difficult for customers to find what they needed. Customers were also unable to easily access and review their cart before completing their purchase. Additionally, since the business is based in Québec, users were unable to switch between English or French when viewing the website. Many customers were frustrated by the ordering process and had begun to voice their concerns to the client.
How might we make the process of viewing and ordering products from the store smoother for the store owners and their customers?
The homepage of the previous Spyderzone website.
The process
After the kick-off meeting, a virtual card sorting exercise was conducted with the client to establish product categories and the hierarchy of information. The categories used to organize the products needed to be more generic since the site needed to be able to grow with the projected expanding product lines over the next few years. Based on these product categories, a site map was created to show the hierarchy of pages and a rough flow from one page/section to the next.
The analyzed categories during the card sorting exercise.
Due to a tight timeline and budget constraints, a WordPress e-commerce template was chosen that would allow for some flexibility in layout and features added. Minor customizations to the template were needed once the design and features was established, so I partnered with developer Melissa Jean Clarke for the website build and launch. WordPress was attractive to the client since it is simple to learn, maintain, and add on to if needed.
Once the site was developed and given final approval, I created an in-depth guide for the client with step-by-step instructions on how to add, remove, and edit products and how to keep their products organized with tags and categories. This document really put them at ease on how to update their own website. It also allows us to communicate more easily when they have an issue completing a task or completing some maintenance to the website.
Managing client expectations
Managing client expectations was a challenge during this redesign. This became especially apparent during the design phase when the client would request new features, even if they were very far out of the scope or budget of the project. An example of feature creep involved the home page.
On this page, the client initially wanted a 360 degree, rotating view of the different Spyder vehicle models with hover effects to show where each of the products and accessories could be placed. Once I explained how time intensive, resource heavy, and expensive this feature would be, it was decided to only include photos of some of their most customized vehicles in the header of the home page. When faced with challenges like this, I made sure to remind the client of their main goal for this website: something simple for their clients to navigate and easy for them to update.
Desktop and mobile homepage with images of the motorcycles that Spyderzone customizes with their products.
Results
Since the launch of the new Spyderzone website, business has never been better for the client. More individual customers are visiting the website and purchasing products (even internationally), while more wholesale dealers are contacting the business to supply products. The owners of Spyderzone are now able to concentrate on this business full-time, expand their product lines, have more wholesale customers, and add more trade show events to their calendar.