ROLE
User Research + Copy + CRO
Platform
Responsive web
Link
Visit Site
Background
Hestan Cue was dissatisfied with their website's visual design, and enlisted an external digital design agency to overhaul it. As their growth marketing agency, they asked us to advise on the new designs. Upon seeing them, I had immediate reservations. Although visually interesting, the magazine-style layout they designed prioritized aesthetics over usability and catchy slogans over clear, compelling, and customer-focused copy.
I presented the team with an analysis of the new designs and suggestions for improvement:
The Cue team was nonetheless eager to launch it. We encouraged them to A/B test it against the existing homepage, and five weeks later, the new design was converting 61% lower.
Determined to execute a successful visual refresh, they enlisted a second UX designer. A similar outcome followed – A/B testing revealed a 23% decrease in conversion rate over the already poorly performing redesign.
Gathering data
While testing was ongoing, I conducted voice-of-customer surveys, usability testing, and a heuristic analysis via the Baymard Institute, set up click tracking, and launched PDP abandonment and post-purchase surveys. From this, a few things became clear:
Hestan Cue's smart cookware system is novel and complex, consisting of three elements: an auto-adjusting countertop induction cooktop, smart cookware with embedded heat sensors, and an interactive iOS app. These work in concert to guide the cook towards restaurant-quality results. From impression tests and usability testing, it became clear that visitors did not understand what, exactly, Hestan Cue offered. Even after exploring the entire website in depth, some visitors still weren't sure if Hestan Cue sold recipe books, cookware, or something else.
Hestan Cue had a well-produced explainer video, and visitors who watched it converted at 5x the rate of those who didn't. But it was buried deep below the fold – scroll maps showed that only a small percentage of visitors even saw it. It clearly needed to be much higher on the page.
PDP abandonment survey respondents overwhelmingly reported price as the top reason for purchase hesitation. This is not unusual for premium products and usually masks other, more well-defined objections, but the results here were higher than I'd ever seen. This indicated that Hestan Cue's positioning wasn't communicating its value.
Contrary to the team's assumptions, the voice-of-customer respondents overwhelmingly cited video-guided recipes as the feature that convinced them to choose Cue. They also cited learning new cooking skills as their most valued benefit, pointing to an unexplored positioning angle: Hestan Cue as a personal cooking teacher.
Outcome
In light of the above, I suspected the following would lift performance:
Explain how their cookware system worked as clearly as possible
Feature their explainer video prominently
Reframe all copy around helping customers level up their cooking skills.
The Hestan Cue team was constrained on dev resources, so I aimed to reuse sections from the previous homepage iterations wherever possible. Much of my work was therefore focused on copy, although I did design several new sections as well.
Taking the above into account, I designed the landing page below. This, along with other research-informed optimizations implemented over eight months, contributed to a 230%+ increase in Hestan Cue's conversion rate.
