Educating seafood customers on the importance of eating sustainably with Skipper Otto.

Skipper Otto challenges traditional means of buying seafood by connecting consumers directly to fishermen. Their unique model aims to keep small scale fishing alive in B.C and ensure customers have access to the very best wild, sustainable seafood. I worked within a small team to redesign the Skipper Otto website in order to streamline membership signups and educate consumers on the importance of eating sustainably.

Role: Lead UX Designer
Agency: Goat
Creative Direction: Josh Mann
Development: Carmen Shing

UX Strategy + Research
Information Architecture + Sitemap Creation
Wireframes
Prototypes
Visual Ideation

Encouraging consumers to eat with the eco-system, Skipper Otto recruits paying members who pledge their annual catch up front, supporting fishing families before the fishing season starts.

Through immersive video content, family photos, and emotive CTAs, consumers are educated on the importance of eating with the ecosystem and are guided to pledge their commitment by becoming a member. With a primary focus on storytelling and driving sign-ups, we created an experience that connects to consumers on an emotional level, ensuring the user flow is considered at every touchpoint to organically guide the user to take action.

Homepage of the Skipper Otto website designed to communicate the purpose of their business in simplified, conversion driven format.

As the UX/UI designer on the project, I was responsible for strategizing the website redesign, identifying areas of improvement by auditing existing content, user insights and historic data.

Uncovering customer pain points helped us to recategorize existing site content, determine simplified user flows, and ultimately establishing an updated, streamlined digital experience for new customers unfamiliar with Skipper Otto’s unique business model. In addition to establishing a new structure for the site, I created wireframes and collaborated with the team during ideation stages of the visual direction.

Library of reusable components that drive customers to sign up

Problem Space

Differing greatly from a standard supermarket or fish counter experience, a much needed explanation of the new shopping concept and sign up process was previously hidden out of sight on their existing site, failing to drive new member sign ups.

Getting to know the owners closely, it was interesting - although not surprising - to learn that Skipper Otto relied heavily on in-person discussions and word of mouth to recruit new members, using networking events and demo days to share the history and drive behind their business model.

With this in mind, we were aware of the importance in bringing an element of authenticity and connection to the new website in order to educate new users on what Skipper Otto is all about, and how the membership works.

Wireframes were used to prototype user flows and conversion funnels

Strategy

By listening to pain points of existing and prospective customers, we worked to create website that educates, persuades and drives action. The site helps to translate a concept that is new to most, into an easy-to-adopt alternative to shop-bought fish.

CATEGORIZATION
We recategorized site content to simplify the desired user flow by focusing on two primary goals - to educate the user on how it works, and the story behind the Skipper Otto business model. Through this pathway of information and education, the user is channeled through the conversion funnel to sign up. The user is prompted to learn more through visual cues such as rollover text and looping videos that break up lengthy copy, maximizing opportunities of engagement.

EMOTIVE CTA ROWS
Where repeated call-to-action rows are displayed across all pages of the site, the user is provided with a benefit of signing up that changes from page to page. Whether that is an environmental benefit, having access to the freshest fish in BC, or the opportunity to belong to something bigger, the site engages with people on a human level to drive action with purpose.

Mobile-first design process

Outcome

With consumers placing an ever-growing importance on sustainably sourced products, it's easy for brands to ride the environmental wave without an authentic back story to support their claims. Dissimilarly, the Skipper Otto website tells an honest story about the real struggles that many fishing families across Canada are faced with.

From footage of fishing boats out at sea, to grainy 35mm film family photos, the authenticity of the Skipper Otto brand story is conveyed effortlessly. The website becomes a tool to showcase the rugged history that brings the brand to the present day - the very reason that consumers need to support such an important movement. We wanted to build a solution that puts this brand story first and foremost, guiding the user to pledge their support and become a member of Skipper Otto.

Impact

Google analytics has provided us with evidence to suggest that site users are more engaged, using the new site to learn more about Skipper Otto by exploring site content:

Bounce rate improved by 4.35%, dropping to 54.90% from 57.39%.
Pages per session increased by 7.65%, suggesting a fit for purpose navigation and user flow optimization.
Average session duration increased by 14.23%.

Since the new site launched, the site has seen a 33.26% increase in organic search traffic - this metric combined with the increase in session duration suggests that site content is relevant to the Skipper Otto target audience.

KATY WITTS

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