Umemura Farm Website – Devlog #1: Project Planning & Research

Project Overview

This is the start of a portfolio project: creating a full-featured landing page for Umemura Farm, a fictional asparagus farm and farmhouse inn based in Saga, Japan.

Today, I focused on Step 1: Defining the Purpose and Step 2: Researching similar cases ,critical groundwork before jumping into any design or code.

Step 1 – Project Purpose

To clarify the goals, I created a [Project Purpose Sheet] with the following key points:

Objective: Build a site that can act as both an online sales page (for award-winning asparagus) and an introduction to the farm stay experience.
Target audience: People seeking high-quality produce, thoughtful gifts, or rural lodging.
Success metrics: User engagement, conversions on product buttons, and brand recognition.

This step helped define what success should actually look like.

Step 2 – Competitive & UX Research

I looked at:

Competitor Best Practices

Farms that humanize the grower with storytelling and awards
Seasonal reservation systems with LINE/BASE integration
Testimonials that build emotional connection

UI/UX Patterns

Mobile-first layouts with hero video/image headers
Sticky headers with scroll-triggered logo swaps
Swiper.js carousels for customer voices or media

SEO Research

Keywords like “アスパラガス通販”, “産直”, “佐賀アスパラ”
Long-tail keywords like “アスパラ美味しい農園”, “生産者直売”

Upcoming Steps

Step
Step 3: Define persona & messaging axis
Step 4: Wireframe & content structure
Step 5: Copywriting
Step 6: Design (desktop/mobile)
Step 7: Coding & animation
Step 8: Publish & track