Toys Et Cetera
……..is a Chicago toy chain that caters primarily to families with children ages 0–12 and carries a limited selection products for adults. They pride themselves on customer service, niche toy brands and local community building. A nexus of education and play, their toy shop aims to serve families who are looking for the best for their children.
Their website hosts opportunities for customers to learn about toy safety, get expert recommendations and shop for their friends and loved ones. However, upon scratching the surface of user testing, most users found it to be overwhelming and visually unappealing.
In order design a website that served their users better, I interviewed several toy shoppers and studied personas to develop a better approach to their e-commerce site.
John, Barbara, Edda & Devin are toy shoppers with different needs. John is shopping for his 12 year old daughter, Barbara and Edda are shopping for their grandsons and Devin is shopping for himself.
John likes to buy toys that give him and his daughter something to do together. Barbara is going to meet her 1 year old grandson for the first time and wants to bring him a gift. Edda is wants to make sure she’s buying something that will suit the intelligence of her 9 year old grandson and Devin wants toys to remind him of his childhood.
These are diverse needs, but when it comes down to it, these users are looking to satisfy basic human emotional needs. John wants connection, Barbara wants joy, Edda wants peace of mind and Devin desires belonging.
These users have a clear vision of how they want to feel, but when they shop for toys, questions arise that make them feel confused and overwhelmed.
Questions like:
Users begin their shopping experience with hope and a vision that they can find something that will bring joy into their lives, and soon enough, confusion and overwhelm set in.
Basically, they are struggling with “What should I buy?” and “How do I find what I want?”
By listening to these users’ stories, taking careful notes and analyzing my data, I pinpointed the primary strengths and weaknesses of the shopping process in order to start creating an online experience that worked better for the users.
What I learned is:
People love shopping for toys because it gives them time to imagine a future with Connection, Joy, Peace of Mind and Belonging.
Users choose toys that will continue to create those feelings and share those feelings with others.
The research shows that while owning toys creates these desired feelings, shopping for toys DOES NOT.
Not knowing what to buy and having a hard time finding things makes users feel uncertain and disconnected- the opposite of what they want!
With this clearly identified problem in mind, I set out to create a design that gives the feelings the users desire: Connection, Joy, Peace of Mind & Belonging in order to make toy shopping as enjoyable as playing with the toys themselves.
I explored the question: What gives people those feelings- besides toy shopping? I came up with a long list using my research and personal experience and two main themes arose: Socializing and buying people gifts they love.
This means that adding a social aspect and a way for users to buy the perfect gift for someone to the website would create the feelings the users desire. It also eliminates the main confusion-causing question: “What should I buy”.
In the early prototype for these features, users said that they were “helpful” and that they were easy to use.
After testing the prototype with several users, I iterated to make it easier for users to find products and use the new features. Users responses included “That was great!” “That was easy.” and “No problems.”
The final prototype should be further tested for usability and the features should be visually enhanced in order for the users experience to be more joyful & engaging. This can include colors, primary shapes and scrolling/sliding movement so that the website’s interface has the features of a child’s toy.