the largest memorial park in the world
Reimagining the beauty and elegance of Rose Hills
This project aimed to transform Rose Hill's digital presence by redesigning its website for updated mobile responsiveness, integrating a refreshed brand identity, and migrating it to our main Sitecore CMS. Key objectives include increasing revenue through flower sales and enhancing service excellence and consumer relevance measured by online reputation, while acquiring new customers through proactive engagement strategies.
Timeline
From the start of our kickoff meeting with all parties involved on our Digital Marketing team, IT, and Rose Hills stakeholders, we were able to launch our MVP within four months.
Background
As the Design Lead for this project, my contributions were pivotal in shaping the website's user experience and visual identity. My contributions included developing the initial mood board and color palette, facilitating the much-needed user experience workshop, and providing the wireframes, interactive prototypes, and high-fidelity compositions of the entire website. I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to ensure the integration of a refreshed brand look, and aimed to deliver a responsive and intuitive website that prioritized accessibility and ease of use across all devices and audiences.
The project spanned four months and comprised three agile development sprints organized into six distinct product epics. On the design front, we initially identified several knowledge gaps necessitating a user experience workshop, where I played a key role in agenda creation, facilitating exercises, and delivering outputs crucial for communicating progress to our executive steering committee overseeing the Rose Hills project.
Research & Planning
Over a user experience session in a two-day workshop held in Whittier, California, I was able to validate our key user personas, prioritize their user tasks, and collaboratively created their user journeys to understand how they might use the improved Rose Hills experience. I facilitated a card sorting exercise with our SMEs to develop the Information Architecture and overall content strategy. Additionally, I conducted a brand imagery and mood board exploration to validate the new visual styles and design system.
Design & Prototyping
As the sole design resource on this project, I was responsible for developing a comprehensive design strategy and approach. I created over 60 page and asset prototypes, along with high-fidelity compositions complete with development specifications. I collaborated with a Rose Hills subject matter expert to select the optimal Chinese character set for the website, ensuring accurate display during the prototyping phase. This attention to detail was crucial for Rose Hills’ diverse, multicultural user base, recognizing the importance of language nuances.
Testing & Implementation
I utilized TFS as the test case repository and bug tracking system, overseeing UI and functional validation to ensure adherence to Rose Hills' visual branding and templates. Working closely with our IT team's front-end developers and Digital Marketing's content team, I ensured each page rendered accurately across three languages according to wireframes and a dedicated design system. Following testing and UAT, I conducted a comprehensive review of the production site, fulfilling my role as Design Lead to guarantee meticulous visual design implementation.
The newly redesigned Rose Hills experience introduces a revitalized digital presence, featuring an enhanced visual identity, improved floral commerce capabilities, and a fresh perspective on the expansive memorial park and its chapels.
Location Page
Offers users a comprehensive overview of Rose Hills chapels or venues, including at-need and pre-need primary CTAs, driving directions and map, and photo gallery.
Flowers at Rose Hills
Serves as the main entry point for users to contact the on-site flower shop or continue on to our e-commerce flower shop for a seamless shopping experience.
Flower Removal
For those families that have placed flowers on their loved one's grave, this page serves as a helpful resource to be able to search for a particular section of the park and see which day flowers will be removed on.
Find a Service or Grave
Provide less friction and barrier of entry by housing form after appointment commitment has been initiated.
Obituary Page
Users are able to search and filter for their loved one's obituary page or an upcoming service being held at a Rose Hills chapel or venue.
Progressive At-Need Form
In order to guide users in an at-need situation (a death has occurred or is near), this progressive flow aids in capturing the right information in little time.
The launch of Rose Hills marked a significant milestone, providing a modern and accessible digital platform that better conveys the beautiful landscapes and chapels and enhanced our engagement with customers. The new website not only showcased our commitment to service excellence and customer satisfaction, but it also strengthened our brand identity and supported our ongoing efforts to meet the diverse needs of our multicultural families.
Increase in Sessions Overall
In two months after launch, we saw a 58% YoY lift in sessions.
Mobile Sessions
Mobile sessions were up 102% due to the renewed focus on responsiveness.
Floral Sales Growth
Within 8 months after launch we recorded a 34% increase in floral sales at Rose Hills.