I originally travelled to Manchester in order to visit the frozen yoghurt concession stall in the Arndale centre 'YOFRO'. I had previously tried to contact the owner of the store to check that it would be okay if I came to visit, and ask the necessary information via email and phone, however when I rang I went straight through to voicemail, and When I attempted to email, the email would not send:
Hello there!
My name is Sarah Goldthorpe and Im currently a graphic design student at Leeds college of art. I rang the shop earlier to ask if I would be able to come to visit tomorrow to gather some research for a project I am doing at university, however I am not sure If the message I tried to leave you was saved.
The project I am doing at the moment involves learning how to build a website. Over the summer we had to pick a subject that we would like to research into, Obviously I chose frozen yoghurt as it is my favourite food/dessert.
The project I am currently working on is to design a website for a company within my summer research category that doesn't already have one. As I went online I saw that your website was either unavailable or not designed yet and therefore I thought it would be the perfect fit!
However the website I would be working on would not go live, I am only creating a design and none of the information concerned would be put up online, I am not trying to represent your company in any way. Even though the website will not actually be 'real' on the www we have been asked to go out and collect 'real' research as this is what we, as graphic designers will have to do in the industry.
Any information you could give me would be highly beneficial to my project, meaning I could complete the brief to my best knowledge.
Thank you in advance,
If you are able to reply I am best reached on this email or my mobile: ***********
I Hope to see you soon,
Sarah Goldthorpe.
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However I took the time to travel to Manchester anyway as I had tried to contact the company on such short notice, they may not have had a chance to reply. I also however went with a plan B, I had found another frozen yoghurt shop in a similar area of Manchester that currently already had a website, however it was not efficiently effective for its audience or purpose, This frozen yoghurt shop was called 'Frurt.'
Above is only one example of why the 'Frurt' website seems to fall short for me, I being the target audience, had to stop and think for a long while at why there was an advert for a Italian cafe on a frozen yoghurt website, were Frurt trying to branch out? However when reading the smaller print of the advert, I realised it was advertising a cafe situated next to Frurt. As a new 'trend' in the U.K, I believe that any sites promoting frozen yoghurt should be just that, not confused by other external elements such as this Italian cafe.
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However as I wondered around the Arndale centre in Manchester, the YOFRO concession stand was nowhere to be seen, and so I went to the info desk, where they said that the concession stand had gone. And so I went to visit the second frozen yoghurt shop I had in mind, 'Frurt'. I found that went I arrived at the shop it was situated in the student area of Manchester close to the universities and Oxford road. Therefore I made the assumption that the target audience of the shop was heavily student orientated. The location of the Frozen yoghurt shop was around a 20 minute walk out of the town centre, therefore It was only easily and quickly reachable by residents of this area (students) and those who already had a keen taste for frozen yoghurt (like me) and were prepared to walk the extra distance.
I found that I didn't need to ask as much about this company as I would about the first one, as they already had a website which was quite heavy with information about the store, however I felt that they missed a few important details from the site and so I wanted to find this information out in order to improve the users experience on the website, and inform them about the company to my best knowledge.
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What I found out:
On the websites product page we are greeted with 5 different variations of 'desserts' available for purchase at the Frurt store. However the most quintessential item that represents what Frurt is, frozen yoghurt in a cup + toppings, is not even mentioned or labelled on the list with its 4 co- items. The only reason that we understand from the products page that Frurt sell frozen yoghurt cups its from the interchanging banner placed at the top of the page titled 'Endless combinations'. Therefore to improve the customers view of the shop, and give them more of an insight, to what is being sold, I found out all the flavours available at the store.
Dairy flavours:
- Natural
- Tropical
- Peanut butter
- Salted caramel.
I also found out that they also do a soya frozen yoghurt for those who are lactose intolerant (Frozen yoghurt is already easier to digest for those who are lactose intolerant from ice cream) However the green tea flavour caters to this sector of the market more so.
I also found that there are a large range of toppings available at the store, in store these are split into sections which I feel people would benefit from seeing online:
- Fresh fruit
- Dry fruit
- Chocolate
- Sweets
- Seasonal
- Sauces.
I was interested in what the seasonal flavours would be, and so I headed over to the companies social networking platforms to see if there was any information about past frozen yoghurt seasonal flavours that they had done, below are some examples that I found when looking at their Instagram page:
Special pumpkin spice flavour available for halloween.
Special flavour chocolate fudge brought back after popular demand.
Honey brought in as an alternative non dairy variation to Green tea.
Red velvet brought in in the fall/winter period.
Pina colada was added to the summer menu.
Specially themed pink lemonade, brought in especially for valentines day, both dairy and soya free.
Cookies and cream with oreo employed through popular request.
Taro flavour brought in specially for the Chinese new year. Taro is a southern indian and south east asian plant.
Apple and blackberry was added to the menu in autumn, to mimic the idea of apple spice.
Followed by warm toffee apple in those autumn turn winter months.
I think it is important to display these unique flavours on the site as these are what helps to send them apart from any other frozen yoghurt stores popping up around manchester. Adding these unique flavours may also help to bring in new customers to the store.
Another important aspect that I felt was missing from the price was the prices of what was being sold. Although this is not a buy online site, I find that It is important, and found that I would like some kind of indication of what I would be paying in order to make a purchase. If I were to go to visit an attraction, I would probably avoid going if the only way I could find out how much I would be paying to go in was on the doorstep.
The prices are easily available in store on signs and on leaflets:
Bambino cone - £1.50
Waffle cone - £2.00
Small froyo cup - £2.50
Large froyo cup - £3.50
Frurt away (Take home tub) - £5.50
Toppings - 50p each.
This is information I would consider as being a necessity for the website.
The only information about the health benefits of Frozen yoghurt as a pose to any other frozen dessert shown on the website is that displayed above.
However there was much more health benefits about the frozen yoghurt specifically made by Frurt displayed at the store:
Below are a couple of photos I took at the store displaying a variety of healthy benefits for this froyo:
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