(2022 Ver.)Revamp the mobile shopping experience of the UK's Top online-only fashion retailer
Redesign the Top tier online-only fashion retailer, a Pretty little thing mobile app.
Pretty Little Things(PLT), is one of the top three online-only fashion shopping retailers in the UK targeting Gen Z and millennials who are looking for quick, and affordable.
But, According to the online reviews, its mobile shopping experience makes users frustrated with the lack of support and confusing navigation eventually leading to increased cart abandonment (avg. more than 70%).
User Challenge: PLT users have been suffering from a lack of instant customer service especially after they purchased items. During the COVID 19 Pandemic, users couldn’t find and seek the solutions promptly from PLT, they also faced unwanted waiting and updates of the app that didn’t solve the key problems.
Role: UX, UI Designer (Research, Interaction Design, Visual)
Timeline: 4 weeks, Hand off in November 2020
(Re-conducted on Mar 2022)Tools: Paper, Pen, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Miro, Typeform, OBS Studio
Process:
Disclaimer: This is my part of my self-learning UX/UI journey and I’m not affiliated with Pretty Little Thing
Current problems, that are REAL.
PLT’s superior market status was threatened by around 98% of negative reviews in 2020 from their customers, especially from mobile users.
I needed to find out why the reason is.
Online App Reviews
Going through a massive amount of negative reviews from current PLT users, I’ve collected 4 different main frustrations that stood out;
Navigation to support and help, Product Description, Checkout and Technical bugs
Usability Testing & Interview
In order to prove my assumptions from previous research, I recruited a total of 4 users to join the user testing interview, 3 of them have known PLT for a while and browsed before, with 1 user completely unfamiliar with PLT. From the phase, I found that;
Poor accessibility to customer service, lacking of key information on the product page
are the key problems that I should focus on and prioritize.
The competitive analysis
The moment that I confirmed what the main pain points were in PLT’s mobile shopping experience, I asked myself;
- What other competitors are doing?
- What is their strength compared to PLT?
- Which part that we should look into and benchmark?
- Which features attract users’ interest and should be re-evaluated for both its business and users?
I got to know;
From the competitive audit, I discovered that;
Stronger showcase and various supports channels and its simple navigation can improve the general user experience and make the PLT more outstanding.
What do we know about Customers?
Based on previous research data, I developed a user persona as a representation of PLT’s target audience. A user persona of PLT, Amelia and her journey map has provided a hint of future solutions and processes.
Customer Persona: Amelia
Our user persona, Amelia’s bio and its journey were based on current PLT’s targeted customers and the results of my previous research.
Her journey so far?
Scenario: Amelia wants to buy a new affordable outfit so that she doesn’t need to contact crowds while shopping and fitting items offline.
Goal: Check out a new dress within £25.00 and confirm if there is any delay because of COVID-19.
Design is all about iteration
Tackle 1: Is the feature directly connected to the users’ needs?
Going through building IA and sitemap, I audited the initial lists of features that I would design, considering if each feature would directly influence the users’ experience and their needs or not.
Tackle 2: What was working and not working?
Before jumping right into designing high fidelity designs and prototypes, I want to know if my assumptions and design solutions are valid to users.
I decided to conduct usability testing including user flow testing and A/B testing.
Let’s make it visible, shall we?
Based on the previous quick usability testing and iterations, I delivered some solutions with high fidelity design and prototypes. After several times of validations, I finalized the design solutions and here are some main features that I want to compare with the current PLT mobile app.
Learnings & What’s Next?
- You cannot solve everything, Focus is the key.
Going through several iterations and validation phases, I realized that I cannot solve every problem of the product. All I can do to provide an enhanced and improved user experience is to focus. After several times of rough trials and errors, I re-designed my redesign project and reduced the number of hi-fi artboards efficiently from 65 to 5 artboards.
- Feedback is crucial, Early feedback is more crucial.
I found a lot of articles that empathize with the feedback. And now I know why. I sometimes put myself in the same shoes as other users, and think my initial assumption would be the solution, but it was totally wrong, I learned it a hard way. After wiping the whole first case study and starting over, I always prepared two or three versions of designs to compare and test.
I cannot imagine, that I built this case study 2 years ago, Time really flies! ha!
As this was my very first ux case study while I was full-time self-learning myself to become a designer, I just couldn’t let it be covered with dust. I hope you enjoyed reading my new version.
Thanks for the reading! Let’s stay connected, find me here!
