A homepage fix that became a full site redesign, once the research made the case for it.
Role Sole UX designer, end to end
Timeline 2025 – 2026 · in dev handoff
Problem Brief said “fix SEO and homepage conversion.” Research said the site was a catalog with no path for an undecided buyer, a quote form that lost leads, and product claims that didn’t match the product.
What I did Research, IA, design system, 31 state pages, 49 mobile frames, dev handoff. Fact-checked every claim against the client’s experts.
Result A fact-corrected, fully responsive site in dev handoff. The version in handoff hasn’t been user-tested yet; the eight sessions on the first redesign are the user evidence behind it.
Methods WCAG 2.1 AA audit · competitive benchmark · moderated usability testing (8, on the first redesign) · stakeholder fact-check rounds
Tools Figma · HTML prototypes · scripted page generation What the brief said, and what the research said American Steel Carports hired me as sole UX designer to fix SEO structure and homepage conversion, per two stakeholder Loom videos. Two pieces of research on the live site made the case for something much bigger.
The WCAG 2.1 AA audit came back at an overall C-. The costliest issue: the quote request form, the core revenue path, had no associated field labels, no error handling, and no required-field indicators.
ASC had no funnel analytics, but its quote-tracking system showed a meaningful share of requests stalling after the first step; the broken form explains the drop. Also found: color contrast failures (the roughly 8% of men with color-vision deficiency), keyboard navigation unusable without a mouse, missing alt text, and no semantic headings or skip links.
The benchmark of seven direct competitors showed why it mattered: ASC read as functional but outdated, with an underused 3D configuration tool and none of the animation, microinteraction, or modern trust-building patterns that direct competitors were already using.
What users told us The first redesigned version tested “okay.” Okay wasn’t good enough, and I had eight people telling me why.
Eight moderated usability sessions, with eight participants matching ASC’s buyer profile: rural property owners and small-business buyers researching a carport or garage. The pattern across sessions was consistent: participants could find a product but couldn’t tell whether ASC served their state and wanted the licensed-states list on the homepage, couldn’t tell what a quote would cost them, and assumed the single product photo was the exact building they’d receive.
Two concrete changes came straight out of this. The generic trust slider was replaced with a static trust row and a states-list panel showing where ASC is actually licensed. And every product moved to a multi-image gallery with a made-to-order line underneath, because the single hero photo had made testers think that exact building was what they’d get.
The site behaved like a catalog, not a guide. How I put the case to stakeholders Making the case Both pieces of research pointed at the same problem: the site only worked if a visitor already knew what they wanted. There was no path for someone still deciding, no upfront trust-building, no proof before price. Fixing that meant restructuring around “here’s how we help you” instead of “here’s what we sell.” The stakeholders agreed, and I owned the redesign end to end.
Before and after The live homepage led with a coverage map and a slogan. The redesign leads with what the buyer is trying to do.
Before A catalog. A map, a slogan, and a Build Your Own button.After A guide. Headline, product paths, proof before price.1 2 3 4 The full page Tap the image to enlarge.Product paths Hero chips: pick what you’re building.Proof before price Trust row and states panel.Made to order Gallery microcopy under each product.Financing up front Financing strip.Then the facts Verifying the site’s existing claims against real product specs became part of the work. The site serves 31 legally and materially distinct states, so licensing, snow loads, seismic zones, and permit requirements are all state-specific, and almost nothing could be fixed sitewide. Ground truth arrived in batches across four client expert review rounds, so it kept shifting under the work.
Some of what those rounds turned up:
The site claimed The product expert said What changed Wind-rated 130–150+ MPH Every building is rated to 100 MPH Fixed across product cards, trust sections, and 25 state-page stats Licensed in 31 states Serves 31; holds a direct license in 21, plus 4 through partner ACI Licensing panel rewritten to list only the 25 licensed states; “serving 31 states” kept as a separate claim Fire-rated Nothing is fire-rated All 15 fire mentions removed Snow, ice, hail, hurricane-ready Standard snow load is 30 lbs; higher ratings are purchasable upgrades Reworded as upgrades, with cost language PE-stamped drawings included Free generic plans; site-specific stamped plans are purchased Permit answers rewritten on 7 state pages Installs on sloped sites Buildings require a level site Claims reversed on WV and VA
Where ambiguity was real, such as FAQ answers citing county wind codes, I flagged it for the client rather than rewriting. Where a claim was simply false, it came out.
The licensing panel, rewritten: the 25 states with a license, listed by name. C- Overall WCAG 2.1 AA rating of the live site before the redesign.
Accessibility audit The research that justified the full redesign.
Stalled Quote requests sitting in the client’s tracking system with no next step. Traced to a form with no labels, no error handling, no required-field marks.
Core revenue path The costliest finding.
7 competitors Heuristic review of seven direct competitors in the metal-building market for trust patterns, configurators, and motion — feature presence, not performance data.
Competitive benchmark
150 → 100 MPH Every building is rated to 100. The site claimed 130–150+ in cards, trust sections, and 25 state stats.
Corrected claim The less impressive number is the true one.
31 → 21 States the site said ASC was licensed in, versus states it is. It serves 31; the panel now lists only the 25 with a license.
Corrected claim The one that changed the homepage.
The design system underneath None of the redesign could be built reliably on the file I inherited, so the system came first. Four typefaces were consolidated into one unified type system, thirteen stale text styles were retired, and the broken component variants were rebuilt so that every page draws from the same parts. That foundation is what let 31 state pages and 49 responsive mobile frames stay consistent while the facts underneath them kept changing, and it's what the dev team is picking up at handoff. The states-list panel that replaced the generic trust slider is one of those components: a single, reusable block that shows the real licensed states wherever it's needed.
4 → 1 Typefaces in the inherited file, consolidated into one unified type system.
Typography One voice across every page.
13 retired Stale text styles cleaned out before anything new was built.
Text styles Only the styles the site actually uses.
Rebuilt Broken component variants fixed, so 31 state pages and 49 mobile frames share the same parts.
Components Consistent at scale, ready for handoff.
All 31 state pages, built from one template. How the 31 pages got built One designer can’t hand-build 31 state pages and 49 mobile frames on this timeline, and I didn’t try to. I designed the page template and the components in Figma, wrote the rules for how each state page should vary (hero, stats, service-area groups, FAQ), and used AI-assisted generation to produce the pages from that template. Every generated page went through me. I reviewed each one, corrected facts carried over from the wrong state, layout drift, and FAQ answers that overclaimed, and sent back anything that didn’t match the system. For example, the generator carried a Texas CTA onto the Pennsylvania page, and nine Texas city cards showed up on Colorado. The decisions (what to build, what the template allowed, which claims stayed) were mine. The tooling did the typing.
Three decisions that cost something Decision 1
Redo the entire site after the first version tested “okay.”
Problem The first redesign tested “okay.” Eight participants couldn’t tell whether ASC served their state or what a quote would cost, and assumed the single product photo was the exact building they’d receive.
Alternative Adjust the first version.
Why The sessions said the information needed reorganizing and supplementing, not adjusting. The states-list panel that replaced a generic trust slider was one instance of that larger call.
How I checked it Eight moderated sessions on the first redesign. The version in handoff hasn’t been user-tested yet. Decision 2
Tell the homepage the truth about licensing.
Problem The site said licensed in 31. The client’s experts said 21 directly, 4 through partner ACI. ASC serves 31.
Alternative List all 31 and footnote the licensing.
Why The panel was rewritten to list only those 25, with “serving 31 states” as its own line. The smaller number is less impressive, and it’s the accurate one.
How I checked it Against the client’s product experts, across four expert review rounds. Decision 3
Correct wind ratings sitewide.
Problem The site claimed 130–150+ MPH. The product expert said every building is rated to 100.
Alternative Where ambiguity was real, such as FAQ answers citing county wind codes, flag it for the client instead of rewriting it.
Why Where a claim was simply false, it came out. Where it was ambiguous, it was the client’s call.
How I checked it Fixed across product cards, trust sections, and 25 state-page stats, against the client’s product expert. Outcome A fact-corrected, typographically unified, fully responsive site across 31 state pages and 49 mobile frames, with a design system the dev team can build on. It’s in dev handoff with go-live expected late 2026, so there is no post-launch metric yet. The version in handoff hasn’t been user-tested; the eight sessions on the first redesign are what drove it. Next step: test the shipped version with users.
Reflection Fact-checking should have been in the scope from day one. It wasn’t, and it became the biggest part of the work only once actual checking started. Next time I’d budget for it up front: a claims inventory before design, and a client expert in the review loop from the first round, not the fourth. The other lesson is about evidence when there isn’t much. ASC had no funnel analytics, so the research came from the one system they did have, a WCAG audit, and eight people in a room with the first redesign. That was enough to know what to fix and what to throw out.
Raphaella Stillwell