Applying UX Practices to Retail Design
Using personas and user journeys to build a better store
I’m designing a physical store with the goal of attracting new shoppers, strengthening the brand’s relationship with its current customers and combating the convenience and ease of online shopping. But I’m not a retail or interior designer, so where to start?
To make any new product or service it's essential to start with the user’s needs. So, I used UX techniques to build an understanding of different types of shoppers and their goals. I identified three basic types of shoppers: The Shopper On A Mission, The Browser and The Loyal Customer. I kept these general so that they could be applied to different retail environments but for the purpose of the user journeys they are all shopping for jeans.
Customer Personas
Personas are archetypes built to identify our real users profile, needs, wants and expectations in order to design best possible experience for them.
User Journeys
To help design the circulation and program of the store I created a user journey for each of the kinds of shoppers and identified opportunities where they can be engaged along it.
These journeys and personas helped inform the design of the retail space and online shopping platform. My case study for the project can be found here.
