ROLE
User Research + Copy + CRO
Platform
Responsive web
Link
Visit Site
Overview
Hestan Cue is an internally funded DTC smart cookware company that's part of Hestan Commercial's portfolio of brands. As conversion optimization manager at their growth marketing agency, I leveraged analytics, usability testing, voice-of-customer research, heuristic analysis, and A/B testing to increase their site-wide conversion rate by more than 230% over an 8-month period.
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 and overall CRO strategy. Upon seeing the new designs, 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, seemingly foregoing ecommerce and landing page best practices in pursuit of visual polish.
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, testing revealed that the newly redesigned homepage was converting at a rate 61% lower than the previous one.
Determined to execute a successful visual refresh, they decided to give a redesign one more go, this time enlisting a second UX designer. A similar outcome followed – A/B testing revealed a 23% decrease in conversion rate over the already poorly performing new homepage.
Gathering data
While the above testing was ongoing, I:
Conducted a voice-of-customer email survey to better understand customers' motivations, needs, and frustrations, as well as experience with the product so far
Conducted usability testing to unearth any usability issues
Conducted an in-depth heuristic analysis via the Baymard Institute to ensure their site followed ecommerce best practices
Set up click tracking on key elements across the site to assess their impact on conversion rate
Set up PDP abandonment and post-purchase surveys to gather feedback around reasons for purchase hesitation
From the above, a few things were clear:
Hestan Cue's smart cookware system is a fairly novel and complex product, consisting of three elements: an auto-adjusting countertop induction cooktop, smart cookware with embedded heat sensors and other technology, and an interactive iOS app. These elements work in concert to guide the cook towards restaurant-quality results. It was clear from both impression tests and usability testing 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 very well-produced explainer video. Click tracking revealed that visitors who watched it converted at a rate 5X higher than those who didn't, and usability testing participants demonstrated a high level of engagement and interest in the video. However, it was buried fairly low on the page, and scroll maps revealed that only a small percentage of visitors even saw it. Given this, as well as the complexity and novelty of Hestan Cue's cookware system, it was clear the explainer video belonged higher on the page and deserved significantly more prominence.
Per PDP abandonment surveys, site visitors overwhelmingly reported price as the top reason for purchase hesitation. This is not an unusual result for higher ticket items, and usually masks other, more well-defined objections. The results here, however, were higher than I had ever seen. This indicated to me that Hestan Cue's positioning needed to better align with visitors' motivations and frustrations to communicate its value to them.
The voice-of-customer survey provided invaluable feedback around customers' frustrations and motivations. Interestingly, and contrary to Hestan Cue's understanding of what made their product compelling to their customers, respondents overwhelmingly cited video-guided recipes as the feature that convinced them to choose Cue over other products they considered. Additionally, respondents cited learning new cooking skills as the top benefit they got from cooking with Hestan Cue.
Outcome
In light of the above, I suspected the following would lift performance:
Explain how their cookware system worked with as much clarity as possible
Prominently feature their explainer video
Rework all copy to frame the product's benefits in terms of helping customers level up their cooking skills.
Because the Hestan Cue team was constrained on development resources, I wanted to leverage sections from the three previous homepages as much as possible. This would allow them to repurpose existing sections and minimize custom development. Although I did end up needing to design several new sections, much of my work here was focused on copy.
Taking the above into account, I designed the landing page below. The launch of this page, along with a number of other research-informed optimizations over the course of an 8-month period, contributed to more than a 230% increase in Hestan Cue's overall conversion rate.
