With an easy to use and well thought out navigation system, some clever article links placement and better information architecture, we didn't just achieve the goals that were in the brief, we smashed it. The end product was well received by readers, halved the bounce rate, double the retention rates and page views per session.
Given Sassy Mama's fun loving and family-friendly image, we opted for some homey and sweet colour scheme that matches the brand's visual identity.
First up, is to tackle the bounce rate, we had to make sure the content survived on the landing page are easy to read and immediately appear to be relevant to the user, so that they continue browsing and exploring the content that the site has to offer. Next up, we added a very easy to use navigation system that made it super simple for users to find the articles that are relevant to them based on categories, themes or topics. Similar or related are cleverly placed so that users will continue exploring other articles once they are done with the one on hand. Ads are always visible of course but never in the way. We also added a school directory to surve parents looking for the right schools, which also had an added benefit for SEO purposes.
Keeping inline with the fun colour scheme, all the icons are designed to be light and cheerful. All the images has a homey, warm and friendly vibe to it, with a touch of sassiness that matches the brand's other visual assets.Some handwritten Serif fonts are added to help lift this design overall scheme and add a touch of lifestyle feel to it, keeping in line with the Sassy Media Group's other brands.
Given the client has been using WordPress for a number of years at this point, and they are familiar with the CMS and are happy with its user friendly backend interface. Since WordPress is very much designed for blog style content distribution as well, we didn't see the need to change here. However, when we revamped the site, we rebuilt a lot of the features in-house that were previously handled by plugins, to elevate the security of the platform and decrease the chance of conflicts between a long list of plugins.
We have always wanted to work with the Sassy Media Group, so when they reached out to us to revamp their Sassy Mama brand, we were over the moon. The brief was to increase retention, cut down bounce rate and to significantly improve the mobile experience. We also added a whole directory for schools and added a bunch of other fun and 'sassy' functionalities while we were at it.