Lyka Homepage Revamp

Discovery

Lyka provides tailored, customised dog meals based on age, breed, health requirements and body measurements. They are Australia's only carbon negative dog food provider. These meals are delivered through subscription and arrive weekly. 

Since early 2022 the number of customers purchasing a subscription had been dropping. To begin a subscription, customers needed to complete an in-depth survey about their dog. 

The process began with meeting Lyka stakeholders and listening to their vision for the Lyka brand and the website. 

It's about leveraging the homepage and the website... to maximise the number of people who begin the Build-a-box process.
‍
 – Philippe Mallet, Chief Marketing Officer Lyka

With a clear understanding of the business objectives, I moved on to customer research. Using standard qualitative interviews and surveys, I learned the customer's expectations of the product and the potential barriers to conversion, and their specific needs for making purchases for their pets.

A series of usability studies with potential and current Lyka customers allowed me to test different features and aspects of the Lyka website:

1. Was price transparency a barrier to conversion?
2. Was it clear how to initiate the subscription process?
3. What delighted and frustrated customers when using the website?

From these studies, I created a customer journey map and profiles to communicate with Lyka stakeholders to illustrate the different customer's needs and frustrations with the current website.

After presenting the research to Lyka, I began to ideate a new Lyka homepage, I wanted to:

Create... a compelling and exciting way... 

For... Australian dog downers on any device...

To... make the easy decision to start a subscription...

That... improves the health of their dogs and increases their trust in the Lyka.

Define

I wanted to create a new homepage that quickly informed customers of Lyka's best features.

If customers grasped the product offering quicker, purchases would be faster and more straightforward.

The data showed customers would not read the homepage text. Instead, they would scan the pages consistently. So the challenge was to create a homepage with fewer words and easily digestible content.

I began to paper prototype a new homepage using index cards to see if I could communicate the product offering with fewer and fewer cards. I created a low fidelity wireframe prototype from these initial designs and began testing with potential customers.

Deliver

After two rounds of testing, I understood what features of the new site were working, what was troubling customers, and new insights emerged.

Through testing and iteration, I learned: 

• Sustainability is a crucial factor when making a purchase decision
• Which call to action buttons gave the user the required context
• The initial designs had too much of a focus on packaging

A demanding challenge arose during the delivery process. As Australia dealt with the Omicron outbreak, I had to move all customer testing remote. I used a combination of Zoom, Figma's prototyping features, and the 'hug the laptop method'. 

After two weeks of testing and iterating the prototype homepage, I presented the new homepage to the client. The new homepage was shorter, demonstrated the unique selling points, and empowered the customer to make a more informed and easier purchase decision.

Impact

Making the page quicker to read and easier to understand for everyone.

• The new homepage design gave customers a more extensive and quicker comprehension of Lyka's core product offering, using 75% fewer words than the original
• The final prototype resulted in a 60% decrease in time on task for customers initiating a subscription
• A strategic FAQ ensures that engaged customers are routed to essential content that answers queries to overcome barriers to adoption early in the customer journey