A clearer, more credible website that helps researchers understand what we make and reach our sales team.
Compared with the same nine months before the redesign.
People were arriving, but not understanding enough to act.
CADworks3D makes high resolution 3D printers and resins for microfluidics, the tiny channel devices research labs use for cell biology, diagnostics and chemistry.
We set out to build a more reputable website, one that explains what we do and what we sell in a more descriptive and informative way, so that visitors understand the products well enough to get in touch. That meant first finding out what on the old site was working and what wasn’t.
Two of the three beliefs were reframed by the data.
Before the research, I set up Hotjar and Google Analytics 4. Our team reviewed the heatmaps together and agreed on what the homepage, and the site, needed to do for visitors. That gave us three working beliefs, and I tested each one against the data.
Readers didn’t act, but the easiest action was hard to find and the others asked too much. A path problem, not a motivation problem.
ReframedThey did misunderstand the product, yet the most technical section was the most read. They needed the category explained first, with the depth kept below it.
ReframedConfirmed for the homepage, and the content itself wasn’t the issue. The same product was read twice as deeply on one page template as another.
Confirmed
Seven independent sources, both numbers and words.
Mixed methods triangulation. Nothing was collected specially for the study. I reanalysed data the business already held, both numbers and words, and compared it across seven independent sources.
What researchers needed already existed. It sat where people didn’t reach.
The free sample was the most effective page on the site, yet about 2% of traffic ever reached it.
“That’s great to have a sample box to test it.”
Very few visitors landing on the printer overview went on to a printer page, and the comparison table made the cheaper printer look sharper than the flagship.
“What is a DLP printer?”
Visitors arriving from conferences and published research engaged most, yet institutional proof reached about 1 homepage visitor in 10.
before explaining what the product was.
The same two resin products were read to the end twice as often on one template as on another.
Budget holder, new to 3D printing, naming an instrument in a grant. Needs the category explained first.
Student or postdoc doing the technical assessment, often finding us through published papers. Needs evidence and something to try.
Budget holder who has outgrown their current printer. Needs proof their specific problem is solved.
Expert in a different fabrication method, deciding whether to change method altogether.
The buyer is usually two people.Budget holders tended to book a call, while evaluators tended to use the self serve form. They use different doors in the same visit, so both doors need to be visible from every page.
I turned the findings into design decisions with the team.
Scarlett led the visual layout of the new pages from the research, while I rebuilt the platform underneath them: upgrading the server from outdated software, restructuring the URLs and optimising images. The homepage became about 60% lighter and its performance score improved by about 80%. I also added custom tracking to a site that previously had none.
Every resin moved onto the template that was read twice as deeply, with technical features and real dimensions high on the page, and the duplicate catalog pages were retired.
Request a Quote became the primary button, a helper bar offers guidance on choosing, and the comparison link says exactly what it compares.
so its key differentiators are always visible rather than one slide in five.
Institution logos now sit just below the homepage fold, and a new Discover section gathers research and case studies.
saying in plain terms what we do and how we differ from other microfluidics businesses, instead of naming a category.
A rebuilt contact page, with Talk to a Specialist in the heroes of the main pages.
The old pages offered it only at the very end. It now sits much higher on the resin pages, because the sample shows what the printer and resin produce together.
A result only counts here when web analytics and heatmaps agree.
The nine months after the redesign compared with the same nine months before it.
Still about one and a half pages per visit, 92% of visitors never click an internal link, and the navigation draws more clicks than Request a Quote on the flagship page.
Research on the free sample is in the works.
The new hero shipped, but the homepage improved least of any page and its time on page fell over the year.
Marketing campaigns and visitors arriving from many different parts of the internet all shift the numbers, so I had to stay mindful that none of it was skewing the data.
Keeping a shared record of what shipped, aligned with the research findings, kept the whole team working toward the same goals.