Caribbean Cigar Celebration
CONTRIBUTIONS
Target Users
Duration
Project Overview
The Caribbean Cigar Celebration: A cultural celebration with a charitable cause
Organized by Davison North Law, this charity event, scheduled for August 24, 2024, aims to raise CA $100,000 for the Easter Seals House Program by celebrating the vibrant culture of the Caribbean. The event blends the enjoyment of cigars, fine rum, cuisine, and music, primarily targeting middle-aged, working-class Caucasian men who enjoy socializing within their social cliques.
I successfully led a team in designing and developing a rebranded, user-friendly WordPress website in just two months. The website acts as a central hub for event-goers and prospects to explore event details, purchase tickets, provide sponsorships, sign up as volunteers, and register as vendors—all for the event’s success.
First Problem
The previous website lacked clear information on the benefits, which hindered sign-ups and sponsorships.
Although the previous website outlined the event and its annual fundraising goal, it fell short on effectively conveying the value of becoming a sponsor, volunteer, or vendor. The content was mainly directed at a single user group—their existing client database—and relied heavily on direct invitations, with the website merely serving as an informational reference. This approach limited organic sales and broader community engagement.
First Solution
New Caribbean Cigar Celebration website showcases compelling reasons to join—whether for fun, impact, or business
To build trust and drive engagement, we included targeted benefits, testimonials, stories, and images aligned with visitors’ motivations for joining the event. The redesigned site aims to captivate visitors by showcasing the event’s meaningful impact, providing tailored content that appeals to those seeking a memorable experience or a way to contribute to a good cause.
Second Problem
The website missed key visual elements that captured and conveyed the event’s vibrant atmosphere, diminishing the event’s appeal.
While it featured a minimalistic black-and-white design with images serving as social proof, our team realized that visually reflecting the event’s central theme was crucial for communicating its fun and festive vibe without relying on lengthy copy. The website needed to ignite visual imagination to drive organic sales and sign-ups.
Second Solution
The new website features captivating aesthetics that embody the excitement and festive spirit of the Caribbean.
The website showcases a sleek and vibrant design, complete with a new logo, refined color palette, and dynamic graphical elements. This fresh look captures the essence of the event’s lively Caribbean vibe, drawing users in with engaging animations and videos that convey the celebration’s energy and movement.
Third Problem
The website was overwhelming, text-heavy, and cluttered, making it difficult to read and navigate.
With only a single page housing all event information, the experience felt lengthy and cumbersome. It lacked visual breaks, navigation links, and a clear information architecture to help users find key details easily. As a result, potential participants often abandoned their journey midway due to excessive scrolling in search of essential information.
Third Solution
The new website enhances user experience with improved navigation and readability.
We thoughtfully organized the content across multiple pages, with a clear and concise layout and copy. This structure boosts scannability and readability, allowing users to easily find key information and navigate the site with ease.
Screenshots
Empathy
Turning user research into insights
While the celebration primarily targets cigar enthusiasts, involving business owners for sponsorships and vendors, as well as volunteers, is crucial for the event’s success. Ultimately, the website should cater to all potential participants, addressing their motivations for participating in the celebration.
Our team researched and developed user personas to effectively understand the motivations of all the target audiences:
Problem Definition
From Empathy to Defining User Challenges
Building on the insights gained from the created user personas, I led a workshop to map out the user journeys based on their motivations and goals on the existing website. This process allowed us to identify key opportunities to enhance the user experience, drive sales growth, and increase engagement for volunteer sign-ups, sponsorships, and vendor registrations.
Below are the insights obtained from the user journey maps:
Lack of Persuasive Content
The website lacked information that clearly communicated the benefits of the event, which is crucial for encouraging ticket sales, securing sponsorships, and attracting volunteers and vendors.
Weak Visual Branding
Key visual elements that reinforce the event’s branding and convey its overall vibe were missing, diminishing the event’s appeal.
Overwhelming Layout and Content
The current layout and content were cluttered and overwhelming, making them difficult to read and navigate.
To encapsulate, our team came up with this overarching problem statement:
There is a lack of relevant content and visual elements to convincingly encourage people to join the event and effectively capture the event’s vibe.
Ideation
Generating ideas to drive viewership and sales growth
To address the overarching problem statement, our team collaboratively brainstormed website features and sitemaps, sketching various concepts aimed at delivering more effective, engaging, and enticing content for our target markets.
The new website will feature concise descriptions of key benefits and compelling social proof. Whether it’s for brand recognition, upskilling, or contributing to a social cause, the website will provide relevant details to encourage participation.
We also developed style tiles to conceptualize the user interface’s look and feel in collaboration with the brand team. Our client selected a sleek and sophisticated design for the initial style tile:
Prototyping & Testing
Visualizing ideas and iterating on them
Collaborating closely with the client and various design departments, our team developed a design system and a medium-fidelity prototype following the newly created brand guidelines.
We conducted usability testing with five prospective users to validate our design’s intuitiveness. We then translated the test results into an empathy map to pinpoint the prototype’s strengths and areas for improvement. In the next iteration, we addressed the identified pain points:
More Vibes Please
The website felt too boxy, lacked media, and didn’t convey the vibrant, fun Caribbean atmosphere.
More Sophistication Please
The site lacked a high-end feel.
Encourage More Users Please
Sponsors and donation call-to-actions were not easily accessible.
Our team then refined the prototype to better capture the ‘Caribbean vibes,’ infusing it with a fun, festive atmosphere while maintaining informative content for users. We also ensured that sponsors and donation call-to-actions were prominently placed to maximize engagement and opportunities. Overall, the average number of clickthroughs to accomplish tasks dropped by 50%.
Development
The New Caribbean Cigar Celebration Website
My team used WordPress and Divi to build the website, enhancing its functionality with custom CSS for styling and animations. We rigorously tested the site’s functionality, navigation, and responsiveness across various platforms, including iMac, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones.
The newly developed website features:
New Brand Identity
The website showcases a sleek and vibrant Carribean aesthetic, incorporating a new logo, color palette, and graphical assets.
Bite-Sized Information
We organized the content across multiple pages, ensuring the layout and copy are clear and concise to enhance readability.
Interactive and Engaging Layout
The website’s new look is complemented by engaging animations and videos while the CTA buttons are prominently placed to drive sign-ups and sales.
Enhanced Social Proof
To build trust and encourage participation, we included targeted testimonials, stories, and images to captivate users and demonstrate the event’s impact.
What Now?
Supporting the website to guarantee success
With only 55 days remaining before the event as of this writing, the organizers are diligently working to forge partnerships and produce event paraphernalia, aiming to achieve their CA $100,000 fundraising goal for the Easter Seals House Program.
Our team will continue to support the website by addressing any bugs and monitoring its performance over the coming months. Additionally, we will document any points for improvement to enhance the website’s friendliness, marketability, and user experience for next year’s event.
Reflections
In addition to the UX improvements made to the website, our team navigated several internal and external challenges, which highlighted the value of leadership and mentorship:
