Creative Websites
Suds Creative, Llc
https://sudscreative.com
Senior Product Designer / UX Team Lead
2016 — 2020
Projects include UX Team Management, Server Setups, CMS Install & Configuration, Front-End Engineering, SEO, Sitemapping, Wireframing, UI Design, Prototyping, Animation, and Marketing.
I started with the company when there were just 6, and departed when it was 50+ and recently acquired by a large investor. I built the website product from the ground up, as well as the web team including in-house front-end engineers and designers, and engineering teams abroad. We had a copywriter and two dedicated QA team members.
With this team we were able to streamline website design and production to a 6 week timeline. I conditioned our house of designers to web design & UX best practices. A semi-templated system was used for the designers to run with, and certain areas were dedicated to pure custom creativity. This delicate balance allowed for the maximum quantity of products produced with happy customers.
Development was initially handled by myself until we started hiring contractors and dedicated engineers. I coordinated efforts in and out of server-side and client-side environments. I oversaw maintenance & backups, compliance & security, and phases of QA and launch/post-launch procedures. I set up formal guidelines for UX, SEO & domain audits.
I was a strong advocate for formal process and getting client sign-off (signatures) at certain milestones in the project timeline. Everything was a coordinated effort that resulted in an extremely successful solution for the company and it's clients.
The small startup quickly grew and we built a fully custom office space at The Village, Meridian.
I put together a thorough website questionnaire to gage customer direction and desire for their project, which migrated into a digital custom form and baked into the kickoff strategy. The questionnaire was either sent to the client to fill out or we'd facilitate over a call. The form contained conditional logic to open up new branches of questions depending on how a client answered. Form submissions were routed to CRMs automatically creating a task in our project management tool and assigning a project owner.
I performed a full spectrum UX & SEO audit of any current website properties. We went as far as researching nearby competitors and adding strategic keywords and page structure. I then built a proposed sitemap, began rounds of wireframing as copy and content were being generated, and after sign off of sitemap and wireframes we'd begin designing the websites.
Clients ranged from single location car washes with just 5 pages, to car washes that had a few dozen across the nation and included a large variety of pages and content. Each client had a unique theme and/or mascot that made delightful experiences on often bland websites. We turned the websites into ROI machines via email marketing and lead generation, creating a coupon distributor that sent a barcode with a discount to customers that would be redeemed at the wash. All year there were ongoing campaigns where we built landing pages for social and email marketing.
Some landing pages we developed a gamification strategy and built some type of scratch ticket or "wash the car" using your finger or mouse cursor. We also utilized a popular spin wheel plugin that would randomly generate a table of codes for each win. Our landing pages were converting at a high frequency and our tactics for engagement were getting more creative and successful.
I built a style guide for each website to maintain development consistency, and utilized a trusty set of plugins to build components like sliders, forms, modals, etc.
I sought the largest resolution branding assets from the clients. Usually I would need to recreate the client's logo in vector. From there I could design out logo variances to use across the website as well as a favicon that would be generated for multiple devices.
I built Newsletter Signup modules that would exist in strategic locations across the websites to increase lead generation & engagement. I came up with an Unlimited Member soft-signup idea to gather customer information without taking any payment information. The customer would get signed up to a marketing campaign and be triggered to complete the purchase shortly after.
Every website I designed and built was fully responsive for all major breakpoints. Each website included an animated hero slider on the homepage. All website headers + menus were sticky and had a condensed bar that would follow you as you scrolled on the page.
I would handle all asset generation & optimization, taking great care in cutting and saving images at their lowest size but highest quality and crispness. This included icon libraries, photo galleries, menu graphics, etc. Assets were saved out using a catalogued naming convention for easy use during development. Often times clients had unique fonts as part of their brand that we would fully facilitate on their websites.
We had several clients that were challenging to work with. Often times I would be brought in to alleviate those client's worries or demands and bring the project pulse back down to a realistic projection. I listen carefully and ensure the client knows they're being heard. Sometimes it just takes thinking outside the box on what a client is trying to say or express, and I could usually translate/decipher enough to transform them into a happy client.
Since our primary clients were car washes, I built a successful layout architecture that would accurately harness their business core pillars and principals. Each wash menu that you would potentially see as a sign on the street or a sign at the pay-station would be coded out fully responsive. I had direct influence and impact on how those menus converted to interested buyers.
