The J.R. Simplot Company is one of the largest privately held food and agribusiness companies in the nation. Simplot Foods, their food business division, is one of the largest producers of frozen potato products in the world.
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While fries make up 80% of their business revenue, their line-up also features roasted specialties, fruits and vegetable, hearty grains, pasta and avocados.
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Simplot Foods primarily caters to foodservice operators of restaurants, delis, K-12, healthcare, long-term care, colleges and universities, entertainment venues (stadiums). The operators can order food samples from the website, but need to get in touch with a distributor to place an order. Simplot and non-simplot food distributors use the website to get product information and look up products for their customers, the operators based on their needs.
Simplot wanted to revamp their digital properties to better serve their customers and to keep up with the competition. GLG was asked to review all their digital properties and propose ideas for what is needed to better meet their customer and business needs. My team was tasked with redesigning the Simplot Foods website to align with the goals of their website users a.k.a foodservice operators. Our high-levels goals included:
I led the design of the website experience and collaborated with a UX Manager, a Market Strategist, Project Manager, two visual designers and a Delivery Manager during the process.
I am collaborating with Simplot engineering team on the development of the project design. The website is set to launch in July 2019.
I along with our Market Strategist conducted a discovery meeting and stakeholder focus group sessions. We chalked out the operator journey to identify critical purchase stages when Simplot Foods interacts with operators. Within a given stage, we included the defining characteristics illustrating the type of interactions that are occurring, and the key channels operators engage with.
Customer Journey
For every purchase stage, we proposed a set of ideas to drive necessary content improvements to address operator’s information needs and add suggestions for development of new digital tools/experiences to enhance and facilitate the sales process.
I made sure that the proposed digital tactics align with Simplot Foods’ business objectives:
I examined competitive and comparable websites with stakeholders uncovering the content they use to connect with their audience, understand how their websites are structured and what tactics they employ to facilitate lead generation. It helped me get a clear understanding of what stakeholders were looking for in terms of content, interactions and visuals.
A quick review of the analytics gave me a good understanding of the user behavior, essential task flows, highly viewed pages and commonly used search terms.
Simplot Foods provided our team with detailed audience research and communication strategies done by external research companies. The key personas were: Techy trend-seekers, Business Boomers, Culinary Creatives and Cultivated Classics
Simplot Foods website will be built using Sitecore as their CMS. Based on the personas provided, I developed a content scoring system within Sitecore to identify user profiles (personas) and deliver content and functionality that matches their needs and interests.
Combing through the research and customer journey helped me to quickly map a broad set of tasks. I categorized and segmented the tasks into behavioral affinities and aligned content and features. This enabled me to visualize what existing functionality and content would be useful, what tasks needed more support, what opportunities were available to innovate and what could be discarded from the existing website.
I created a requirements spreadsheet and prioritized them against our personas needs, tech feasibility, and business objectives. This informed our phasing strategy for the website, the product feature roadmap and the product backlog.
I reviewed and prioritized existing website content, based on user and business needs. I identified content gaps, and worked with a content writer to provide recommendations on where fresh content is needed.
Qualitative and quantitative research showed that operators primarily used the website for product specifications, new products, order samples, and menu inspirations (recipes). Problems included:
Existing Navigation
I conducted a quick card-sorting exercise to understand how operators and sales reps look for products online and gain a clear understanding of the product groupings. The new navigation includes:
I took a top‐down approach to defining the overall structure of the experience. Sketching and wireframing allowed me to generate stacks of ideas about UI, functional and data elements, and interactions. I used an Invision prototype to communicate ideas and build a shared understanding around user flows and interactions.
Product categories and sub-categories
To make sure that operators easily find the products, and product-related information, I designed a detailed filter set for the product category pages that allowed operators to find products based on specific needs like diet, value, cooking method, and so on. Cross-selling and upselling opportunities are provided on these product list pages. I designed the product detail pages to be is robust with detailed nutrition, packaging and cooking information that aids in decision-making. 
Sample Order
Simplot wants operators to get in touch with Simplot reps to buy products. Ordering a free product sample is a critical flow that allows operators to try their product before ordering. I designed a simple ordering experience that encourages visitors to order samples by providing critical lead information that makes follow-up a breeze for the SImplot reps.
Brand building
I ensured that we were following the new brand direction and designed a welcoming homepage that aids in navigation and wayfinding. Other brand and value proposition pages like Why Simplot, Brands and Company are aligned with business requirements, and user information needs
Segment, Offer, What’s New
I helped define the experience for their different business segments like K-12, restaurant, healthcare and many more. I took care to see that we are surfacing relevant segment-based content to engage the visitors and build brand loyalty.
Recipes & Search
Recipes inspire chefs and culinary creatives to purchase Simplot products. I designed the recipe pages to provide deep engagement and the right-level of detail.
Resource constraints: Limited engineering resources meant that we needed to prioritize our focus and design reusable components for the client’s engineering team to build the website easily. I created detailed annotations in Zeppelin, with clearly defined components and interactions. I led the coordination between our design team and client’s engineering teams to focus our work on things that would be high impact and low effort to build. We also maintained an experience backlog to ensure appropriate focus as more resources became available.
Realistic scoping: Simplot was eager to release the website, and careful planning was required to ensure that we were able to deliver meaningful value in each phase. I created a two-phased approach that outlined our scope, so that we could revisit it frequently and ensure alignment across the team.
The first phase of the website is set to launch within a month. In the meantime, I’m working with their engineering team to ensure the website experience is built the way it was designed. Our team has started work on phase II of the website, and will work on optimizing the phase I experience after we get valuable usage data a few month after launch.
