Building Blocks Toy Store Website Refresh

General Assembly UXDI, Project #2

Project 2 took everything we learned from Project 1 and brought it to the next level. The research was more extensive, the prototypes were higher fidelity, there were more iterations, and the presentation was more involved.

The first step of this project was the site visit. Prior to the site visit I looked at the website, yelp reviews, and photos of the store. What I found from that due diligence was that they are well-reviewed, they have free gift wrapping, and they have a terrible website.

Synthesis of Yelp Reviews:

West Town (5 stars, 31 reviews)

• Helpful Staff
• Free Giftwraping
• Quality Toys
• Support Local/Boutique
• Customer Service
• Pricey / well-priced
• Wall-to-wall toys
• They make Experience Simple
• Owner is involved in neighborhood community

Lakeview (4.5 stars, 49 reviews)

• too crowded
• Thomas & Friends train
• Liberal Return Policy
• Great Customer Service
• Ordered from website but emailed Simone, too
• Owner gives back to community/ positive force in community
• Calling in ahead of time to order and purchase

The website is clunky, too busy, poor design, hard to navigate, and an overall sub-par experience.

Below are three iterations of the affinity map created after my site visit:

The orange notes and arrows are what came to be my insights:

1. Online presence does not reflect the store culture and brand
2. The store culture fosters learning, is wholesome, is community oriented, known for quality, curated, boutique, local, relationship-focused, employs experienced employees
3. From my consumer research, the store experience, culture, and attributes are overwhelmingly positive.
4. The community involvement is well-known in the neighborhood and leads to the positive culture
5. They are selling well-selected items to buyers who care.

From my insights I recognized the problem statement: There is a disconnect between the culture and brand of the Building Blocks Toy Store website and the physical store which creates inconsistencies and discourages online business.

A process that proved helpful in the first project was using word associations. Three main descriptive words I determined from my affinity map were: “Wholesome”, “Relationship-focused” and “Boutique”. For example, with the word “wholesome” I thought of: innocent, mom-approved and home-cooked. This exercise would eventually help me to create a more focused final product.

The logical design direction was this: The new website design will better reflect the wholesome, boutique, relationship-based experience of the store.

The challenge that I faced next was attempting to create a “wholesome”, “relationship-focused”, “boutique” experience through black and white wireframes. At this point in the design process, I saw most of my solutions to the design direction coming from a better visual experience on the site through images, color and font. In order to communicate these intangible feelings through my bare bones design I needed to use features.

As part of our project we were handed detailed personas. The goal was to address the pain points of the personas and keep them in mind while still staying within the lines of the design direction. The key points I identified of each persona is as follows…

John:

• 12 y/o daughter
• Values trustworthy brands
• Wants access to range of merchandise
• Likes to have a relationship w/ store
• “Social proof from others to know what is cool”

Dexter

• Lego Collector
• Values Reading and Writing Reviews
• Informative Product Details and photos
• Efficiency is important

Edda

• 9 y/o grandson
• Values customer service and talking directly to a person
• Overwhelmed by lots of choices
• Wants suggestions
• Likes option to contact store

The features I created to solve the problems (and the ones that survived brainstorming and user testing) were:

1. Personal Shopper: user fills out simple form and submits to store. Store replies via email with 3 hand-selected items for the client
2. Robust “About Us” Page with company history, specific information about each employee and
3. Employee Favorite items: these items had stars next to them on the search results page and were also located next to the employee description. Each “employee favorite” had a review written by the employee.
4. Customer Reviews were important to the personas so I incorporated those
5. Search function
6. Simple checkout
7. Mission Statement

During User Testing I got consistent feedback about the homepage. The original homepage had hand-drawn icons, a button labeled “community”, a long drop-down, buttons and not links, and it did not have the store locations.

The final product looked like this:

After synthesizing my results from user testing, I found that most of my problems were with information architecture and simple formatting. In the end I combined pages and drop-down menu categories to simplify the user experience. It was most interesting to find that even though a process can work in my head, it may not work for another user.

In my presentation feedback, I was told to forget about my persona design opinions. For example, I suggested that building blocks toy store re-brand and create a new logo. The feedback was that I should consider who the logo is made for, and not assume because I don’t like it that it doesn’t work for the store.

Overall, I believe that I towed the hard line between following my design direction and keeping in mind the personas and this is my final product:

User Flow:

Site Map:

Final Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16iPEF8b0UlTVCEbLIlkseWfmGkLZRuCU4ygwEy6O7CE/edit?usp=sharing