Alyssa Nelson
Case Study -
OneHourWeb.site
A $12/month website builder designed to get small business owners online in an hour — no learning curve, no tech skills needed.
Project Type: Live SaaS Product
Role: Co-Founder and Lead Product Designer
Timeline: October 2023 - Present
Challenge: Create the most intuitive website builder
Democratize web presence for small businesses by eliminating cost, complexity, and time barriers.
252,000 new websites are created daily, yet most builders either demand steep learning curves or steep prices. We identified a massive underserved segment: small business owners who want a professional site fast, cheap, and with zero technical friction.
Our Hypothesis: Could we deliver professional results in under an hour for $12/month?
My Role
Co-founded and led product design and strategy
Conducted user research, designed key flows, built the design system
Collaborated closely with the engineering co-founder to balance simplicity with functionality
Research & Validation
Interviews with 30+ small business owners revealed:
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"I just want a site that looks good." — outcome-driven mindset
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"I don't have time to learn something new."
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Setup expectation: under 2 hours
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Budget tolerance: <$20/month
Market Gaps Identified:
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Wix/Squarespace: $20+/mo + learning curve
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WordPress: Free but inaccessible without tech knowledge
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GoDaddy AI: Fast but uncustomizable
product design strategy
Design Philosophy: Constraints enable simplicity.
We focused on smart defaults and I advocated strongly for feature limitation to remove failure paths while delivering satisfying customization.
Principles I Championed:
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Curated Aesthetics: Hand-picked fonts and color palettes eliminate choice paralysis
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Intelligent Defaults: Layouts designed to avoid visual errors by default
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Invisible Complexity: Mobile-responsiveness, accessibility, and performance are handled behind the scenes
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Progressive Disclosure: Advanced controls hidden until needed
Product Decisions:
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14 structured section types instead of blank canvas
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Limited, professional color palettes instead of a full picker
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AI-generated sites with editable scaffolding
By constraining options to professionally designed variations, users can personalize without risk of creating something visually broken.
Foolproof Customization
(Solves: "I'm not a designer")
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Edit from a list, not a blank screen
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2–10 layout variations per section
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Live preview across devices
Key features
Each feature was deliberately crafted to address specific pain points identified in our user research. Rather than building a comprehensive tool, we focused on eliminating the three biggest barriers that prevent small business owners from getting online: not knowing how to start, fear of looking unprofessional, and technical complexity.
This eliminates the intimidating blank canvas that causes most users to abandon traditional builders before they begin.
AI Site Generator
(Solves: "I don't know where to start")
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one paragraph about your business = instant site
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Generates content, layout, and imagery instantly
Built-In Tech Advantages
(Solves: "I don't have technical skills")
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Fully responsive by default
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AA accessibility compliance
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Guided domain integration
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Automatic photo optimization
These complex technical requirements are handled invisibly, so users focus on content and branding rather than implementation details.
design process
Phase 1: Research & Validation
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Interviewed 40+ target users
Phase 2: Competitive Audit
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Mapped where incumbents fell short on cost, time, and simplicity
Phase 3: UX & Architecture
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Designed a constraint-based system optimized for outcome, not flexibility
Phase 4: Prototyping & UI
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Created onboarding flows and section-based editors
Phase 5: Component System
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Developed scalable design system and rulesets
Phase 6: Iteration
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Ran user tests; implemented dozens of usability refinements
In order to make development faster for the engineer, I wrote out the design system in CSS terms, rather than a traditional visual layout
Figma mock-up of Testimonials section design options
Additional Hero section designs and rich text editor added based on user interviews
Guided set-up flow
Additional Hero section designs
and rich text editor added based on user interviews
One of the most complex visual design challenges was architecting a resilient design system that maintains professional aesthetics and visual hierarchy regardless of user-generated content variability.
results & impact
User Feedback: "I can't believe it was this easy!" "That went together so fast, and it looks so good!" "I am net tech savvy, but even I thought it was super intuitive and easy to use!"
8/10 users have exclaimed during setup how exceptionally easy, simple, or intuitive it was to build and edit their website.
Performance Metrics
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30+ active paying users within first year
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97% customer retention
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<10% support contact rate
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Average site build time: under 10 minutes
Business Impact
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High retention and low support = product-market fit
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Price point validated by sustained usage
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Consistent differentiation on simplicity and speed
moving forwarfd
Ongoing Product Development: OneHourWeb.Site continues to evolve based on user feedback and scalability requirements, with several key improvements currently in development.
Color Palette Improvements
While the current color palette limits the number of bad choices a user can make and helps ensure accessibility, users have expressed frustration over not understanding how the color palette they choose will be implemented in the website, resulting in excessive toggling between the palette menu and live view.
One solution I am currently exploring is adding a preview of the live website as users are choosing colors in order to ensure confidence in color choice and eliminate the back and forth.
Users are also often frustrated with the application of yellow and orange shades across the website, and have mentioned frequently that they would like more granular control of color application.
I am actively working with the engineer to create special rule cases and unique palette options to better accommodate these use cases.
Additionally, I am constructing a set of rules and systems that can allow users to change the color of specific elements in a very limited way that eliminates visual failure paths, and updates any text connected with the element to maintain proper contrast ratios.
Aesthetic Improvements
Navigation buttons are currently at a styling default set by the engineer due to time constraints and prioritization of other more essential functions. The result looks somewhat piecemeal and outdated.
I am implementing a glass-morphic visual style language to the UI controls to create a more sleek and modern feel for the website builder to inspire greater trust and brand value for the user.
I am also building default scroll-animations and micro-interactions into each section to improve the "wow factor" of the finished product in order to generate more referrals from excited users.