I was approached by the founder of Goldfinch Environmental to develop a website for their new waste to value business. Along the way, we worked together to identify the user(s), develop a content strategy and prioritize and align the company's goals with user's goals.
Goldfinch is a new waste to value corporation entering the advanced recycling industry. They have a unique business model and offer something no else has yet to offer within the market. In order to grow as a business, they need to receive funding and attract future partners, but are struggling to do so without a virtual presence. Ultimately, they need a website that will catch the attention of possible clients and present the business as a credible, competent and professional entity to partner with.
In addition to building the website, I also needed to assist the client in building their brand identity. Who was Goldfinch, what kind of image did they want to present in the market, what values did they embody, why did they exist and for whom? There were a lot of unanswered questions.
Armed with a small list of client roles and a vague understanding of what types of services Goldfinch offered, I began my research by reaching out to any and all roles related to the advanced recycling world via LinkedIn. I knew nothing about this topic so I dove, head first, into my role as a listener.
ESG Solutions Engineer
ESG Reporting Analyst
Transfer Operations Manager
Landfill Site Manager
Toxics Reduction Engineer
There were a handful of common themes found through interviews and secondary research, but each could be summarized into the following four categories, profitability, integrity, responsibility and community. These were the common values that all types of users looked for when searching for a partner in the industry. Designing with these values in mind were the ticket to connecting users. I needed to show that Goldfinch embodied these values as well.
When I started the research process one of my goals was determining what qualities prospective clients looked for in a potential business partner’s website. Most importantly what qualities helped them view the business as legitimate, professional and competent. While I’d ideally want to test these hypotheses on Goldfinch’s users, I realized this was something I could test on everyday people for the sake of time.
To do this, I created an unmoderated survey via Maze to test certain hypotheses about user engagement by comparing competitors' hero images. I wanted to gage people's first impression of a site based on the hero image alone.
At this point I had a site structure informed by research, several suggested taglines for the hero section, and clearly defined user goals and motivations, but I needed to share this information with the client and assess their goals as well.
I needed to determine what Goldfinch’s goal was for the user. What is Goldfinch’s goal by having this website? For this I again had to return to my role as a listener only this time with my client.
Through conversation I discovered that while the initial problem was that they needed a website to seem legitimate to potential clients, the real problem was that they needed to attract clients. The website was simply a means to an end. The problem statement had changed.
This moved my focus to crafting a contact form flow that would be unique to each user. I determined that the CTA button should lead directly to this form and should be readily available and extremely noticeable where it made sense. I decided to make the button yellow to catch users' eyes and put it in the hero image as well as at the bottom of the home page.
I wanted to test and see if this would still align with the user’s goals? Would directing them to the contact form bring them the reassurance that they were achieving the goals I had uncovered in my research?
By conducting moderated usability tests and an unmoderated usability test via Maze. My prompt was specific to the hypothesis I was testing.
“You’re a Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Supplier looking to sell your material to Goldfinch, but you’re not sure how it works. How would you learn more about conducting business with Goldfinch as an MSW Supplier?”
Due to many users expressing a desire to still learn more about how to work with Goldfinch and why they should, I redirected the CTA button to the Work With Us page so users can explore their options before being prompted to reach out directly.
This first phase of the project was particularly challenging because there were many different users with different goals, challenges and needs. This was made even more challenging due to my lack of understanding in regards to the subject matter. I needed to work closely with my client to build a website that not only reached user’s goals, but also accomplished the goal of my stakeholder. This is a challenging juggling act and one that still needs refining.
It was important to determine how best to build a design system that reached everyone. I felt this could be achieved through the multi step contact form and will focus on testing on that moving forward.
The next step from here is providing my stakeholder with my usability test findings and solutions and confirming that these are in line still with their goals.
