Thuja E-Commerce Site
TYPE:
Individual project
Conceptual design
MY ROLE:
User Research
Usability Testing
Wireframing
Hi-Fi Mock Ups
Prototyping
TOOLS:
Axure
Pen and paper
DURATION:
2 week design sprint
PROBLEM
Thuja wanted to expand their reach.
Thuja wanted to add an e-commerce element to their existing site to reach their wide network of customers who are not local.
SOLUTION
I designed an e-commerce experience that met both user and business goals.
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Understanding Thuja's brand influenced my research and ensured the design met business goals.
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Found the core of Thuja is in the owner's curation process.
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Thuja’s wide range of design avenues culminates in a refined and effortlessly unique shop.
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These findings influenced the information architecture.
Final Product
RESEARCH
What our users wanted was simple.
After card sorting and competitive analysis I was able to discover common patterns in language and categorization. These findings determined the hierarchy of information and the specific language for the categories.
Iterations of Thuja's e-commerce shop categories.
Through user interviews I discovered how our users prefer to digest and receive information on e-commerce sites. They wanted:
Clean Layout
Our users enjoy simple layouts.
Saved Information
Ease of saved information
Sale Section
Prefer sites that have a sale section.
From this point, maps and flows.
Combining user research insights, competitive analysis, cart sorting findings, and experiences a walkthrough of the physical store, I created the user flow, and site map.
Add-to-basket and checkout
Happy path user flow from homepage to checkout.
Site map of Thuja's site with the added e-commerce element.
DESIGN
Testing the design.
After several rounds of sketching, I developed wireframes then started work on my prototype. I conducted multiple rounds of usability tests and made 3 rounds of iterations.
This is an example of the cart view. In interaction 1, the cart view quickly came into view and it pushed the product page to the left. This was disorienting for users so the second iteration shows how I created a cart view that still sweeps in from the left but has a less impactful distortion to the product page behind it. I tested with users again and it got better feedback.
REFLECTION
Next steps.
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Because the project was a 2 week sprint there's a lot I would like to continue to develop.
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Going forward I would conduct more usability tests and make more iterations on the design.
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I would also like to have a meeting with the owner and review the design with her.
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From there I would like to work with a developer to ship the site.