Hennessey + Ingalls Redesign: A Case Study
The Challenge
Hennessey and Ingalls is a beloved LA favorite for curated art books. While the physical experience is one filled with wonder and delight, the online shopping experience is one of confusion and stress.
How do we create an online shopping experience that echoes the same delight and positivity experienced offline?
Target Audience
Creatives Seeking Knowledge
Based on store reviews found online, I realized that the target audience are high-level creatives age 25–45. These are the people that seek out niche, carefully curated information. They use these books as critical resources for their own careers and/or hobbies.
Persona
Our persona is Lindsey. She’s a 20 year old creative. She loves online inspiration but she also knows the value of a good book.
Defining the Issue:
In tackling the re-design, I narrowed down the focus of what makes for a successful online shopping experience. Two main components that speak to this are:
- Can I find it?
- How long will it take me to buy this?
Users were finding items by mistake more often than by intention. Users were also overwhelmed by the eight-step checkout process all in one page.
We want our user to find items by intention and with ease.
Research and Testing
Current Market
I looked at competitors such as Barnes and Nobles and Amazon, two successful e-commerce sites, what made them easy to navigate
Common key ingredients found were strong use of visuals and visual aid, clear grid structure, and a simple check-out process.
User Testing
In simplifying the navigation system, I did a card sort with users to identify what categories they expected to see and where they expected certain subjects and features to live.
The nav bar was therefore re-structured to be concise and contain relevant-only information.
Solution
Navigation
We provided the users with more appetizers. By utilizing an image carousel, users can discover whats being offered without having to dive into the search bar or the navigation menu. The image carousel minimizes the users time and effort to discover samples of what the site has to offer.
Check-Out
By using Barnes and Noble’s multipage system and Amazon’s 3-step check out process, we transformed Hennessey and Ingalls current 8-step process into something more digestable.
Conclusion
By refining the landing page navigation and the check-out process, users improved ability to navigate and purchase make for a more enjoyable time spent for online browsing and shopping.
