That’s Low Carb?!
MaeLou Media • UX Strategist
October 2019 - January 2020
A food blog is an online platform that shares content related to recipes, nutrition, cooking tips, and culinary experiences. Often combining writing with visuals, it aims to inform and engage audiences interested in food and healthy living. Food blogs can generate income through ads, sponsorships, and product sales while building a loyal community and strong brand presence.
UX Practices at a Glance
User-Centered Research
Conducted user research and gathered feedback to align the design with user needs.
Prioritized Key Information
Displayed essential content, such as "Jump to Recipe," nutritional stats, and user ratings, for quicker decision-making.
Streamlined Features
Removed underused features and highlighted high-engagement elements.
Mobile-First Design
Developed a responsive mobile layout to enhance usability across devices.
Website prior to redesign
Before the Redesign
My client managed a portfolio of healthy lifestyle food websites that saw rapid growth over six years. Despite strong performance, she grew concerned about the long-term viability of her business model amid shifting market trends and rising competition. MaeLou Media generated revenue through ad impressions, clicks, and refreshes, but one site underperformed. Suspecting high bounce rates, the client brought me in to improve the user experience and increase engagement.
User Research
To better understand user behavior and identify friction points, I conducted an in-depth analysis of the site’s performance. I implemented Hotjar, a heatmapping and session recording tool, to track how visitors interacted with key pages. This allowed me to observe scrolling patterns, click activity, and areas where users were dropping off. These insights provided a clear picture of user engagement and helped identify specific opportunities to improve the site’s layout, content flow, and overall user experience.
Screenshot of hotjar analytics output
10% of users
spent less than 5 minutes on the site
95% of users
continued to at least one more site link
25% of users
left the site in the first 30 seconds
Personas
Through interviews with my client, I uncovered key assumptions about her typical users—they prioritized quick cooking times and wanted to choose appealing recipes quickly. To support this, they relied on clear recipe ratings, user reviews, and high-quality photos. Users preferred fast-loading pages and trusted blogs that visually conveyed the appeal of the food. Using these insights, I created a user persona and conducted in-depth interviews with five individuals matching the target profile to better understand what defines a positive experience on recipe-focused food blogs.
New Mobile Layout
Guided by user research and feedback, I developed a new mobile layout that served as a foundational template for future MaeLou Media site enhancements. The design focused on streamlining the user experience by removing underused features and visually emphasizing high-engagement elements such as the search bar, recipe listings, and top-visited links.
I also prioritized surfacing key information users valued most—introducing elements like a "Jump to Recipe" button, summarized nutritional information, and average user ratings to help users make quicker, more confident decisions.
Final mockup for mobile website
The Result
The redesign of sites under the MaeLou Media portfolio lead to a dramatic increase in user traffic. My client acquired websites that took her company's reach to over 11 million users per month. By honing her business strategy, my client was able to focus on buying and flipping food blogs using a tried-and-true user interface template. Profits increased 1400% in under a year.
“It has become apparent how important it is to listen to our customers and dive into the user experience of our products by creating products that put the needs of stakeholders at the forefront. Designing and creating great user experience is our focus to see continual company growth.”