Website, UX Strategy
The Estate
Yountville
Process
Expedited Research & Discovery → UX & Content Strategy → Visual Design → Development and QA
Team
One of two designers working with UX strategists, project manager, and developer
duration
1 week for landing page. 1 month for strategy, design, and development. 6 months for full website.
Techniques
Website crawl, audience survey, stakeholder survey, competitor analysis, task flows, personas, sketching, wireframes, mood boarding, visual design, UX best practice research, prototyping
About
The Estate Yountville is a luxe resort set on a village-within-a-village comprising of three distinct hotels – Hotel Villagio, Vintage House, and The Villa. The client signed 829 to create a website that would consolidate all their offerings into one online experience while designing a digital presence to gain standing in the luxury space. The site would successfully do the following things:
Business Goals
1. Gain our rightful place in the luxury hotel space in Napa Valley
2. Achieve 60 weddings annually at The Estate Yountville
3. Drive stronger conversion hotel direct
Website Goals
1. Increase qualified leads
2. Refresh the website to better showcase The Estate Brand
3. Make website management easier
Research
Surveys
Kicking off the project, we sent out Kickoff Questionnaires, an Audience Survey, and a Stakeholder Survey. We also analyzed their Google Analytics Report for their current sites. Responses were limited but we were able to find that as a user, it was hard finding the connection to The Estate between the three hotels in the collection. Hotel Villagio, Vintage House, and The Villa all had different websites.
Differentiators for The Estate
- Collection of brand-name shops on The Estate grounds
- Central downtown location compared to luxury competitors
- The Spa at The Estate
- Hot Air Balloon Tours
- The Villa at the Estate
- Private Events
Strengths of Current Websites
- Great photography of the rooms and the surroundings
Weaknesses of Current Websites
- The experiences are not properly highlighted
- Duplicate content across both websites
- The map on the homepage is unattractive
Other summaries of results can be found here in the Creative Brief, including target audience, personas, and brand strategy.
Target Audience
From the audience survey, we were able to gather the target audience. Below is a screenshot of some of what we gathered. We found that the area catered to many young professionals in the Bay Area seeking a getaway from their urban environments.
Strategy
Sitemap
For the sitemap we were able to highlight the differentiators while sorting the experience into clear buckets. The three hotels would get their own bucket under Stays. The Experiences housed all experiences offered on the property. Weddings and Events housed all things for special occasion bookings and inquiries.
You can see the full sitemap here
See the full IA document here
Wireframe Flows
We sketched lo-fidelity wireframes and moved to high fidelity wireframes in Figma which we presented to the client.
We wireframed it so that one possible flow a user might take would be from Accommodations Landing Page -> Hotel Villagio Archive -> Hotel Villagio Room Profile -> Book. A user could also easily navigate between the hotels and through the hierarchy. This flow is demonstrated in the screenshot below.
See all wireframes here
Summary of Strategy
1. Highlight the unique Experiences on The Estate, including the spa and hot air balloon tours
2. Give the Spa at the Estate its own page
3. Include The Villa under the Stay bucket
4. House all events under the Private Events dropdown
5. Highlight the location on the homepage
Design
Design Discovery
The next portion of the project was the Visual Design portion. We created a design discovery board to start a conversation that would hone in on their new style.
The client desired a direction that embodied the words:
Passionate, Beautiful, Fun, Luxury, Play, Rejuvenate, Place to Discover
Visual Design
Knowing the client’s new visual preferences and their color scheme we moved on to design the priority pages of the site. We also asked the client about their current brand assets including their colors. Villagio was associated with maroon. Vintage House was associated with lavender. We stuck with this color strategy throughout the site with grey as their main brand color. A classic serif elevated the brand, while a clean sans serif kept the style modern.
Takeaways & Results
The biggest lesson learned here so far has been in terms of understanding the importance of stakeholders. There were several stakeholders that were brought on later in the process, and communication with contractors was challenging at times. In the end, we communicated directly with stakeholders, which increased the efficiency and accuracy of feedback.
Overall our team loved how the designs and website experience came out. It was a pleasure to work with such a talented and organized group of individuals on my team!
In March 2020, The Estate signed with 829 Studios for their marketing and website redesign.
In December 2021, The Estate sold as the most expensive hotel property sale to date in the Valley.
Press Release