Enjoyers of the Taharka brand ice cream find it difficult and awkward to navigate the current Taharka website. The visuals of the website are strenuous on the eye and an abundance of links leading to dead ends give off an air of unreliability.
I redesigned the overall appearance of Taharka Bros. website by limiting the usage of particular on brand colors and strengthening its brand identity. By cutting the fat and providing a standardized web layout I was able to increase accessibility and ease of use.
UX Design/ Research
Illustration
Apr 2024 - Aug 2024
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, CSP
As the sole UX Designer, I was responsible for every aspect of the reconstruction of the Taharka Bros website, from the analysis of competitors, interviewing potential users and consumers of Taharka products, and even creating a number of key visuals.
After retrieving what I could from Taharka Bros itself I was able to generate wireframes and test them as prototypes to then use the feedback I would receive to produce the high fidelity final mockup.
The research phase was centered around the observation and analysis of tactics the regional competitors made use of, interviews of those who frequently consumed Taharka Bros products. Personas and questionnaires with the primary consumer in mind were also incorporated into this phase.
Initially I looked into potential competitors operating in the same region as Taharka Bros, the Baltimore area.
I discovered that,
Generally speaking the websites for businesses local to the DMV area or more specifically the Baltimore area are lackluster in both appearance and usability
Navigation systems were oftentimes awkward or confusing to use or make sense of, and it didn’t seem as though the websites were built with the intention of leaning into familiar to modern day users habits
Accessibility is a definite issue, with hard to read fonts and blinding colors
While some of the websites were not built with the intention of making online sales but rather directing users to other resources, it was often a frustrating experience just looking for them
Everything considered I think it would be effective to first create a clear and usable navigation, legible fonts, complimentary colors and a clear and uncongested layout.
I interviewed about 8 people, all residents of Maryland and the Baltimore area. Some had had ice cream from Taharka Bros before while others had not. After viewing the website the ice cream brand had been using they made the following statements which I began to organize into an affinity map,
Due to the design choices in the website and the inclusion of pointless links the Taharka Bros website is very lacking in terms of accessibility and usability.
To develop a better understanding of who I was designing for I produced these user personas,
These personas assisted me in centering myself and producing a product that would satisfy them as consumers of Taharka Bros ice cream and not myself. As I am aware that as a designer I may have loftier ideas than necessary.
Before I even began sketching new designs for the Taharka Bros website I went ahead and wrote down everything that came to mind that I may include or remove based on the user interviews conducted.
The Sketches below are the result of my brainstorming,
the problems with the current Tahaka Bros website were primarily found in its navigation with dead end links, and overuse of the brands primary colors. Taharka missed out on some features commonly found on the websites of their competitors as well, that being product ratings and reviews, or even something as simple as promoting their social media accounts on the homepage.
Taharka Bros has a lot of opportunity to advertise their numerous activities by pushing them out of the cluttered and awkwardly labeled navigation bar, and instead display it on the home page for one.
Usually it would make sense to conduct some kind of interview or survey after the brainstorming process is complete. But I realized that fundamentally the Taharka Bros website does in fact get the job done in most cases, its simply that the overall appearance and functionality are lacking in key areas.
My overall thought process was to simplify the navigation and create an overall pleasing and modern user interface for the Taharka patrons to interact with.
I believe the user personas are adequate enough consideration when only this far into the design process.
The current wireframe below is based on the previous sketches with some minor changes, as the sketches were made quickly and without too much thought so I could generate as many ideas as possible before ending up with what I did.
On the homepage of the website a number of services that had not been there prior had been properly brought out from navbar, those elements were primarily the fundraiser, truck booking service, and the Taharka Bros Instagram page.
Initially the Taharka Bros website reserved an entirely separate page for the purchasing of gift cards and things of the like so instead it was moved to the products page alongside the ice cream. The gift card was specifically moved to hero section and limited premium products received a spot light as well.
The checkout experience also received an update, although only in appearance to what consumers are generally comfortable with navigating.
This is my first complete iteration of the design process that satisfied the overall goal of the project as described in the overview. The overall issue being the accessibility of the Taharka Bros official website with it's harsh and uncomplimentary colors, and the incoherent clutter that was the navbar.
There were a multitude of opportunities to improve on the base design with they key points being,
The cluttered navigation bar
Limiting the usage of the pink brand color for use on the logo, buttons and some hover animations
Editing the product images to create a uniform product page
Giving the user a reason to create an account, the reason being product ratings and reviews
Advertising the positive experiences of patrons on the homepage
increasing the accessibility of information on fundraisers
The following is the official website for the Taharka Bros ice cream brand,
With the design process now complete it was time to take a step back and determine whether I objectively made proper use of all critique and fundamental usability issues of the initial website that I hoped to redesign. So I took the chance to revisit the initial users whom I interviewed for the official Taharka Bros website. The users interacted with the prototyped final product. This was achieved with the following questionnaire,
The feedback gathered through user testing and questioning allowed me to surmise that the overall project was a success for the following reasons,
Those previously listed were the successes of the project and now here are the shortcomings,
