Yoga on the River is a yoga studio that came to me for a website. The client desired a website that she could update without a hassle and that could sell products, display her blog posts, and most importantly, be a place for people to come together as a community.
It was decided to build the website using WordPress; the client could easily update information such as class schedules and blog posts and easily add and remove products if I added the WooCommerce plug-in.
The project's development began with an empathize phase in which I conducted interviews to learn how the client and target audience felt about the studio, the project in general, and the excitement of sharing yoga with a larger community. Margot Bloomstein’s card-sorting exercise was implemented to understand how the client felt about the studio and her brand. The client felt the studio was traditional but with a modern sensibility, genuine, community-driven, and with an emphasis on education and exercise. The studio had a rich history and community and therefore needed a website to reflect that feeling.
Development proceeded to an ideate phase, in which I began brainstorming what approach the site would take. During this phase, ideas slowly formed for the structure of the site, page layouts, headlines, and content strategy, including appealing topics for the first yoga blog posts. Topics included yoga after a knee replacement, yoga for back pain, the importance of a rest day, exercise routine to promote health, and many more.
A custom theme was used to ensure full control of page structure and styling during the development of the prototype and the resulting website. Because I practiced agile development, I periodically showed the client functioning pages and she gave me feedback to make improvements. Once she was fully satisfied with the final site, the client was taught how to use the WooCommerce plug-in—giving her the independence to customize products with updates. The client was also educated on updating post and class schedules, along with using the User Registration plug-in to allow the community to be engaged.
The result of this project is a website that does everything the client desires, and WordPress makes it easy for the client to update many aspects without a developer. My procedure of empathy, ideation, and prototyping helps guarantee that each website I made meets the users' needs and the client's business needs.
