The Goal
Create a better navigational experience for the customers in the online store based on H+I’s target audience, research, and user testing.
The Target Audience
25–45 yr old academics, artists, designers, and historians with a college education.
The Process
Research
- Define User Persona and Scenario
- User test current site for usability issues
- Determine and prioritize areas of improvement
- C/C Analyses to gain insight on necessary (and unnecessary) features
Design
- Sketch lo-fidelity wireframes based on research, user test
- Draft medium fidelity wireframes based on user feedback, user test
- Design final mockup and prototype based on user feedback, additional user testing for validation
Research, Step 1. User Persona & Scenario
Erik Meyer
32, Interior Architect
Los Angeles, CA
Erik loves simple, efficient design!
Partly influenced by his German background and his love for Japanese minimalism.
Scenario
Erik has begun a new project for a “tiny home” in the heart of Manhattan, New York. A colleague of his recommended “The Very Small Home”, which is about Japanese tiny homes. He knows about the store in person but does not have time to go downtown to purchase it. Therefore..
Erik would like to order The Very Small Home using H+I’s online store and have it shipped to his office.
Research, Step 2 & 3. Usability testing of current site and AoI prioritization
I had 3 different users from the target audience take a walk through the current website. There were a lot of small details, which were noted, but the three major Areas of Improvement were:
The Navigation
The Search Bar location
The Checkout Process
All three of these aspects were confusing users, and at some points, would lose them completely. (That means lost business, especially when they know they can dip over to Amazon for a painless purchase.)
Research, Step 4. C/C Analyses to gain insight on necessary (and unnecessary) features
I took a look through varying competitor websites to get an idea of what big and small things could be offered to the customers to really improve their experiences with Hennessey + Ingalls.
The information was categorized as such.
What are the key research takeaways?
Focus on..
The Navigation
The Search Bar location
The Checkout Process
Implement additional features
Design with Johannes in mind!
The Design, page by page!
Please note, a lot of sketching, iterations, and user testing went into each page design. If you would like a more in depth look at the process and artifacts behind each design decision, please feel free to reach out.
The Home Page
Product Listing Page
Product Page
The Final Checkout Process
How did the redesign impact the usability of the site?
Originally, it took an average of 3 minutes and 16 steps for users to complete the task of purchasing an individual book.
With the redesign,
it took an average of 50 seconds and only 11 steps.
What does this mean for H+I? Customers are significantly less likely to drop out during the checkout process, will be able to complete their purchases quickly, efficiently, and feel secure about their experience.
My name is Cami Rose.
I’m a User Experience Designer that uses data, research, and design thinking to analyze, define, and provide actionable solutions to problems.
