Imperial Yeast

eCommerce Website with Calculators

Imperial Yeast, a premier yeast supplier for professional brewers and homebrewers, approached us to resolve confusion among their audience segments. We developed a streamlined website to guide each customer group—professional brewers, homebrewers, and retailers—through tailored purchasing paths. As a result, Imperial Yeast saw improved navigation and clear-cut paths to purchase.

Focus:

Content Strategy

Visual Design

My Role

As both the Project Manager and Senior UX Designer for this project, I collaborated with our content strategists to untangle the different user segments’ paths and clearly articulate the shop options for each group. Through wireframes, I guided these segments into their respective silos, ensuring each audience had a clear and intuitive path. I reinforced wayfinding through the design and prototyping phases, ensuring users were always able to find their way back to the correct product category or information.

Overview

The Opportunity

Imperial Yeast needed to address customer confusion stemming from a lack of clear segmentation between professional brewers, homebrewers, and retailers. Homebrewers were mistakenly trying to purchase from the professional e-commerce site, leading to frustration and missed sales opportunities.

The Goals

Simplify user navigation with clear segmentation for different audiences
Increase sales conversions by providing direct and intuitive purchasing paths
Reduce customer confusion around product availability and purchasing options
Reinforce Imperial Yeast’s brand as an educational resource for the brewing community
Optimize the site for clear CTAs and user-friendly functionality

The Solution

I created a seamless experience for each of Imperial Yeast’s customer segments by ensuring users could quickly find the right products and purchasing options. I focused on streamlining navigation, reinforcing wayfinding, and segmenting the audience clearly from the outset.

Segmented purchasing paths for professionals, homebrewers, and retailers in the header
Personalized navigation using cookies to remember user types and adjust the product index automatically
A dynamic filtering system that updated based on user input (e.g., filtering by beer styles or strain types)
Exclusion of packaging images to avoid confusion across customer types
Robust educational resources, including calculators and document libraries, accessible to all user types

The Outcome

Imperial Yeast saw a reduction in misplaced orders from homebrewers and an increase in sales conversions for professional brewers. User feedback indicated that the updated navigation made it significantly easier to find relevant products and educational content.

The Process

Let’s get into it.

The Process

Research & Discovery

Audience Definition

Imperial Yeast serves three main customer segments: professional brewers, homebrewers, and homebrew retail store owners. Each segment has unique product availability and purchasing options, which led to confusion on the previous site.

The primary audience, professional brewers, prioritizes crafting beer that is both profitable and high-quality. They are deeply invested in the science, processes, and artistry of brewing, while also enjoying the vibrant culture of the industry.

Homebrewers, on the other hand, focus more on the basics, such as selecting the right strain for ales, lagers, or sours. In contrast, professional brewers possess a more refined understanding, paying attention to subtle flavor profiles and how different strains impact the final beer style.

The Process

Ideation & Prototyping

User Flows

With each customer segment came a unique purchasing path and product availability. Professional brewers can buy in bulk directly from Imperial Yeast’s wholesale store, while homebrewers must purchase smaller “Pitch Right” pouches from third-party retailers. Retail store owners also purchase “Pitch Right” pouches but are able to buy them wholesale.

This complexity often led customers to the wrong purchasing path. Our challenge was to clearly communicate these differences right from the start, ensuring each segment could easily navigate to the correct section of the site.

Developing these user flows exposed the importance of adding cookies to keep customers in their correct silos. Each strain would have just one product page with availability for each audience, so it was imperative that navigating away from these pages would keep customers on the right path.

Wireframes & Prototypes

With navigation being a major focus of this website, I knew that reinforcing desired paths through design would be imperative to this project’s success. I introduced their e-commerce model quickly and clearly through prominent navigation and effective wayfinding. Consistent reinforcement of key information ensured that users could easily find the products relevant to them, regardless of how they entered the site.

How I designed the navigation would make or break the desired customer paths. It was important to succinctly articulate how product purchasing works for different customers right from the start, then continue to reinforce that messaging throughout the site.

1/3

I also created landing pages for each customer type. These landing pages would act as a homepage for each audience, with strains and resources targeting their specific needs. Each path to the product index, whether from the homepage, landing page, or navigation, would ensure that customers are only exposed to strains available to them.

2/3

However, not all customers are going to enter the website through the homepage. Some may find a strain through organic search where cookies are not going to capture their customer type. This is where displaying product availability becomes important. I also chose to omit photos of any packaging to keep the focus on the strains themselves and avoid confusion as to what format products are available in.

3/3

Calculators

Brewing beer often requires complex calculations, typically done manually by experienced brewers. However, everyday brewers lacked accessible tools for these calculations. Seeing an opportunity, Imperial Yeast introduced calculator logic on their website, offering a valuable resource to both home and professional brewers. This addition not only encouraged repeat visits, helping users familiarize themselves with the Imperial Yeast brand, but also guided them toward purchasing products.