The Grange⌁Kennedy Wilson
An MXB Agency Project
Timeline12 weeks
Services
- UX Research
- UI/UX Design
- Video Creation
- Website Design
The Grange is a Kennedy Wilson owned development in the south Dublin suburb of Stillorgan, just 8km from the bustling city centre. MXB partnered with Kennedy Wilson to refresh the brand, coinciding with a new phase of the development. We delivered a brand, website, social media strategy, co-ordinating photo/video shoots, executing a wide variety of print and digital assets. This case study details my involvement in the project.
Research ✎
When Kennedy Wilson approached our agency to handle their marketing for
The Grange, they had a website built using a template on Wordpress. We identified several problems with the user experience from the lack of flow and positive constraints to the unconventional user interface and poor visual affordances.
Our goal was to address these issues by consolidating information across the site, creating a stronger sense of hierarchy, making the new site more perceivable and more predictable, improving user flow. We started by looking at the landscape of competitors, both in Dublin and across the globe. Benchmarking allowed us to identify what competitors were doing well, and learn from what they weren’t doing so well.
We analysed metrics from the current site such as device type, page popularity, conversions and user flow. These further emphasised our initial thoughts around reducing the page structure and consolidating information.
Ideation ⌲
Once we had the data summarised and structured, I began to build out the information hierarchy, initially centred around the navigational structure of the site. Sketching out flow diagrams helped us determine the ideal flow for our users. The next step, forming a sitemap, and finally, sketching out wireframes. The Kennedy Wilson team really appreciated the depth of research and analysis that went into qualifying our decisions, focusing on user-centric design.
The newly established creative approach was already being rolled out across a slew of print and digital assets. This timing allowed us execute the design and prototyping stage with confidence that our visual treatment was not only appropriate, but, better encapsulated the vision for The Grange project.
Visual Language ✎
The pre-launch execution of The Grange brand had a lot going on from an artwork, colour and illustration perspective. My goal for the website was to refine this, shedding many of the elements that would not translate to a highly legible, elevated site. The chosen sans serif font pairing, Druk for headings and Neue Haas Unica for body copy, juxtaposes the bold and the practical. The colour treatment, blacks and greys, a pop of teal with plenty of breathing space and appropriate contrast exudes sophisticated confidence.
Design⌁Prototype
A high fidelity prototype built on Adobe XD allowed Kennedy Wilson to get a sense of how the final developed site would feel. I designed UI solutions that could host a large amount of photography, videos and icon sets whilst not overwhelming users. Small iterative changes were then made upon client review to strengthen our visual affordances. I then worked alongside our developer to build, test and ultimately deliver a successful site.
Solution ✌︎
The Kennedy Wilson team were ecstatic with the new website that went live on time and in budget. This was the first Kennedy Wilson web project where we had applied our UX processes. The measure of this approach from a business perspective is that we increased their conversions (+885), link clicks (+8.4k), website views (+29k) and the amount of unique users (+10K) in the 6 months since launch.
We have since gone on to review and apply these methodologies to more websites for Kennedy Wilson such as The Cornerstone and Cooper’s Cross, again, seeing measurable results from putting the user first in our thinking and output.