SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE: THE CONTRACTOR REBUILD
UX, Systems & Development
An Ontario contractor's site was actively costing them business. 15 structural failures. 0 local search presence. 80% of Ontario homeowners arriving pre-suspicious. We rebuilt it from the platform up in 3 weeks.
5 min read
SCOPE
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
CONVERSION STRATEGY
DESIGN SYSTEM
PRODUCT EXPERIENCE
ROLE
PRODUCT DESIGNER
SYSTEMS DESIGNER
GTM ANALYST
TOOLS
FIGMA
FRAMER
CLAUDE CODE
01
CONTEXT
The brief said visual revamp. The data said the site didn't exist in Hamilton.
The brief said visual revamp. Before opening Figma I ran an SE Ranking audit. 0 indexable pages. 2 organic clicks per month from Ontario. 85% of traffic from the United States. Page Trust 8/100. Domain authority 0.
The business ran entirely on referrals, a channel that bypasses the site entirely. A visual revamp solves for aesthetics on an architecture that doesn't exist in its own market.
02
MARKET
80% of Ontario homeowners distrust contractors before any interaction. The site confirmed every reason why.
Canadian bank research puts the default contractor distrust rate at 80% before first contact. 63% report major issues on renovation projects, rising to 79% over $20,000. Renovation fraud is Canada's highest-susceptibility scam category per the BBB 2022 Risk Index.
Usernames and identifying details redacted where not directly relevant to research findings.
VOC (Voice of Customer) collection across 10 threads from r/ontario and r/Hamilton, 2019-2024. From a 623-upvote thread:
"There are always huge signs they aren't professionals; no or terrible website, no real work vehicle, no actual store."
Both HomeStars and Google reviews treated as compromised:
"HomeStars is a scam. Google reviews can be easily faked and critical reviews removed entirely."
The contractor's own site is the last independent verification layer. Three tradespeople in an 81-upvote thread offered to show previous work before any money changed hands:
"I'll show you my work to ease your mind."
The conversion insight that shaped the entire direction:
"I would rather pay more for someone who will do it right."
Hamilton homeowners are not price-shopping. They are risk-mitigating.
03
DIAGNOSIS
15 failures. Not random. Each one at the exact moment trust needed to be built.
findings across 5 dimensions
across the entire old site
don't trust contractors before a word is exchanged
Full heuristic evaluation across 7 pages, 5 dimensions: visual hierarchy, trust signals, proof of work, content structure, CTA flow. 15 findings, 8 critical, 5 high, 2 medium. 0 completed project docs across the entire site.
About page hero: a stock photo of a neon sign reading "ABOUT THINGS." Four service pages with word-for-word identical copy. No photo, no location, no project context, the exact profile Ontario forums flag as fake-sounding. Contact page listed phone, email, and form as options and delivered none.
I mapped all 15 failures against the homeowner's decision sequence: first impression, service evaluation, proof review, contact readiness. Every failure landed at one of those moments, in order, every time.
Homeowner decision map — 15 audit failures across 4 stages
The contact form was the second element on the homepage, before services, before proof, before a single reason to reach out.
"For them it's just a job. For you it's the single most valuable thing you own." — r/ontario, 623-upvote thread.
The site was sequenced for the platform's template, not for the person using it. Sequencing failures don't get fixed by redesign.
04
REFRAME
Platform misaligned. Brief misaligned. One problem statement survived. Every downstream decision answered to it.
Watermelon hosts on subdomains with no domain authority, no SEO surface, no component system. SE Ranking confirmed a structural ceiling, not a content gap, so we ruled out the platform on infrastructure grounds before any screen was drawn.
The brief went the same way: 15 failures traced to content sequenced for the platform, not the homeowner. Redesign decorates that problem.
10 HMW candidates. One filter: could this have been written without the research? 8 failed. One survived:
How Might We
How might we restructure a contractor's digital presence so that trust, proof, and clarity do the conversion work before a homeowner ever has to ask?
If a component couldn't be justified against this, it didn't ship.
05
BUILD
Token system first. Architecture second. Screens last. 79 variables encoded before any screen opened.
The old site ran 3 conflicting frameworks, 47 components, 0 token variables. Visual inconsistency is a professionalism signal in this market, and silent drift was communicating exactly the wrong thing.
We encoded 79 variables before any screen opened: 19 color tokens, 11 role-based type styles, 0 hardcoded values. Change one token, all 7 pages update.
Defined in Figma, governed by a CLAUDE.md token spec, built into components via Claude Code, deployed to Framer via MCP.
Navigation reduced from 7 nodes to 4. Framer was chosen for 3 reasons traceable to the audit: independent domain authority, a token-compliant component system, and a scalable growth path the old platform structurally blocked.
Contact form moved from position 2 to position 6. Six named Hamilton homeowners replaced 1 anonymous testimonial. WSIB and insurance placed in primary navigation.
When no client imagery arrived mid-sprint, stock photography was ruled out. Generic imagery is a named fraud signal in this market. Five AI-generated images built to spec: tools and materials, no faces, token-spec color treatment. 2-hour sprint. Zero timeline extension.
Generated in DALL·E using the Commercial Prompt Framework;[Subject] + [Lighting] + [Composition] + [Style] + [Aspect Ratio], a structured approach that isolates each decision domain (what's in frame, how it's lit, how it's framed, how it's rendered) so the model receives unambiguous direction at every layer.
06
DESIGN
Research told us what to build. These three screens show how we built it.
Homepage sequence Trust signals first, services second, proof third, contact last. Every element earns the next one. The sequence isn't a design preference. It's the decision flow analysis, rendered.
Proof section
0 completed project docs on the old site. VOC identified proof of work as the primary trust primitive, what homeowners reach for before any money is discussed. Named homeowners, project context, local specificity. Not a gallery. A verification layer.
"I'll show you my work to ease your mind." The section is a direct translation of that behavior into a design pattern.
WSIB page
No other contractor site in Hamilton carries this in primary navigation. One VOC finding put it there:
"You can't find a real physical office? They can't show you proof of WSIB clearance? RUN."
The homeowner isn't looking for WSIB (Workplace Safety & Insurance Board) to learn about it. They're looking for it to rule you out. Putting it in navigation removes friction on the most binary trust check in the sequence.
07
OUTCOMES
0 to 7 indexable pages. 47 hardcoded components replaced. Six hypotheses instrumented for launch.
Independent domain. Zero-authority subdomain retired.
Conflicting frameworks resolved into one system.
Replaced with token-driven primitives.
Anonymous review replaced. WSIB and insurance surfaced in nav.
0 to 7 indexable pages. Independent domain replacing a zero-authority subdomain. 79 token variables replacing 3 conflicting frameworks and 47 hardcoded components.
Six named local testimonials replacing one anonymous review. WSIB and insurance in primary navigation.
Six launch hypotheses, contact conversion, content depth, service relevance, first impression, platform migration, long-tail SEO, each traceable to a specific sequencing failure being corrected. Analytics instrumentation in place.
08
TAKEAWAY
Get the diagnosis right. Everything else is solvable.
Platform ruled out because SE Ranking confirmed a structural ceiling. Brief reframed because decision flow showed a sequencing failure.
Imagery issue solved in 2 hours because the token system encoded the visual language before the constraint arrived. Every decision was a consequence of the diagnosis.
Client name and identifiers withheld due to confidentiality. Please contact for details.
