About Wesbeam
Wesbeam is a company that produces LVL engineered wood products. They came to Alyka with a single goal in mind - to build a mind-blowing new website.
Their major focus was to construct a user-driven Information Architecture that would become the basis for the website structure - and all of this had to be driven by extensive user research.
The site also had to create an interface that would accommodate the needs of professionals and merchants for a wide variety of backgrounds, skill sets and technical abilities.
The challenge
UX always comes with its own set of challenges. For the Wesbeam user research was a critical factor and we needed to conduct interviews with time-poor professionals and vendors from across the country and the logistics of this proved difficult.
There was also the challenge of trying to meet highly specific and specialized needs for a variety of professionals (architects, engineers, manufacturing administrators) - while still having a website that looked and felt cohesive.
This meant that we had to develop a comprehensive understanding of the industry-specific challenges faced by the different users in order to present information to them in the right way.
The solution
For Wesbeam the solution was in the detail and quality of the UX conducted before we ever touched a line or code, or designed a single page.
There are so many different tools in the UX toolbox. For Wesbeam, we used a combination of user research, user interviews, prototyping and user testing.
User testing
We had to do extensive pre-interview research (in close consultation with Wesbeam) in order to understand the specifics of these user needs, understand their processes and understand the right questions we need to be asking in the next stage - user interviews.
User interviews
We worked closely with the client to find the appropriate interviewees and coordinate interviews with them. An important factor to note here is that to gain real insight into your users’ needs, behaviours, goals, and frustrations, as the interviewer you have to ask open-ended questions that do not lead or guide the interviewee to the desired answer.
Prototyping and user testing
This tactic involves creating a sitewide prototype and providing it to users to test, making note of where and why they hit roadblocks.
The results
The experience of working with the Alyka team has been professional and enjoyable. Thank you.
