Redesigned expert content, boosted engagement by 82%.
Products: outokumpu.com
Type: B2B, B2C, Website Optimization, SiteCore CMS, Brand Strategy
Role: UX Lead
Duration: 2023 – ongoing
Expertises: UX Design, Product Design, Branding, User Research, Design Workshop
Outcomes: +7,5% MoM conversion rate, up to +83% on visits
Outokumpu Oyj is a global leader in stainless steel production, headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. Founded in 1910, Outokumpu generates approximately €7 billion in annual revenue, operates in over 30 countries, and employs around 9,000 people. With an annual production capacity exceeding 2.4 million tonnes, Outokumpu is one of the largest stainless steel producers worldwide, known for its commitment to sustainability and innovation
Intro and problem statement
Overhauled in 2018, with over 2.9 million visits in 2023, Outokumpu.com plays a crucial role in the company's marketing strategy. However, with a complex product portfolio (18 products in 5 groups), industry knowledge resources (500+ articles), and corporate information spread across over 200 sub-pages, it's very challenging to update or introduce new content for the website without major disruption. In addition, each functional team is responsible for a specific part of the website; therefore, content is often siloed, repetitive, or sometimes inconsistent.
Obviously, due to the complex situation and other circumstances, the decision was made that it would not be a total revamp but rather gradual step-by-step improvements for each key section. This created challenges for both the design team to maintain visual consistency and the development team to avoid disruption to other new feature developments.
A few of my many missions with the VML team were: helping Outokumpu revamp the web content update process, establishing a robust design framework, and introducing a design system.
Methodologies
I believe in this kind of website improvement project, the designer should carefully assess the situation by examining current web performance and interviewing stakeholders before embarking on any redesign process. Things happen for a reason; therefore, the current state of any website is often the result of a cascade of events, leadership decisions, technical constraints, etc. Therefore, understanding what led to the current state of Outokumpu Product Pages, as well as the new objectives for this time, is of utmost importance.
Digging through analytics data, watching countless hours of user session recordings, interviewing stakeholders and team members helped me understand business objectives, users' pain points, trends, and patterns. I concluded that the Outokumpu website suffered from two main issues:
Content issue: It wasn't fast or easy for users to find needed information. Pages, menus, and forms were often bloated with too much information due to a lack of prioritization and clear hierarchy.
Overall poor user experience: Deceptive user elements, confusing structure and navigation, poor accessibility.
After initial research, I organized design workshops around these findings and built viable solutions. At this stage, it was best to avoid dwelling on visual flares and how to "fix" the current page. Participants were asked to focus only on how to build a page that really solved user problems with a minimum amount of content. It was always interesting to see people interact with components that they thought weren't possible before, and learn valuable insights from industry veterans.
Outcomes and remaining challenges
Product Portfolio Pages, Expertise Articles Hub, and Industry Pages - these main parts of outokumpu.com were overhauled in the 2023–2024 period. All design changes were based on factual information and gone through usability testing. Yet visual aesthetics were improved significantly while not alienating the not-yet-updated part of the site. Under the hood, the new pages are now more accessible with various design tweaks and front-end code refactoring.
Although the process was considered very thorough, with over a dozen page groups like this, it will take years to complete the whole website in this manner. Therefore, we are investigating various methods to help optimize the process, with consideration of AI assistance and AI-generated content. Moreover for any large B2B manufacturer website like Outokumpu, due to the nature of its content, boost user engagement and attracting desired new users are always challenging.
Outokumpu product page overhaul project has led to significant improvements, resulting in a range of 7.9% to 82% increase in clicks across different products. This enhancement has proven to be effective in driving user engagement and interest, ultimately translating into higher click-through rates and improved conversions on the website.