Rethinking MUJI’s Online Experience (Conceptual)
My role
Researcher, designer, prototype builder, tester, and project manager.
Timeframe
Two Weeks: seven days for research (with a team of three, Weiying Yu, Victor De La Cruz, and I), and the next seven days for design, prototyping, and testing.
Limitations, Parameters, Resources, and Materials
The parameter of the project was time. Our research team had one week to complete an exhaustive and informative range of research to inform designs for a responsive website (focusing on desktop and mobile viewports).
That said, five weeks into General Assembly’s UXDI program ensured we were equipped with a strong foundation in Sketch and InVision, as well as analytical techniques (and tools) such as contextual inquiries, heuristics evaluations, and card sorting (using OptimalSort) to complete the project.
The Challenge
After visiting MUJI’s website (desktop and web) and having visited the physical store multiple times over nearly ten years (in the US, Japan, China, and Spain), my initial assumption was MUJI’s devoted users were disappointed, and often times frustrated with MUJI’s website given it’s disconnect from the pleasure of the in-store experience.
Since my assumption was the frustration stemmed from the difficulty of navigating MUJI’s site as well as the overall cluttered feel and exhaustive checkout process, I wondered how might we meet customers’ expectations of a brand-reflective experience on MUJI’s desktop and mobile and enable users to navigate and checkout per current e-commerce standards?
The opportunity
My goal with the redesign was to delight users with a simple, intuitive layout, a clear and guiding taxonomy (naming of categories), as well as a bare-bones checkout process to increase the ease and speed of purchase.
If my assumptions were validated (through various research tools and techniques which I’ll expand on shortly), success would be measurable decrease in time and frustration when navigating MUJI’s site and checking out. It would also be qualitative in the type of responses from users as they engaged with my redesign compared to those of users as they engaged with the current design.
How did you confirm or refine your initial assumptions?
My assumptions were validated through a series of research and analysis.
My goal when setting out on the research phase with my team was to:
- To understand who the current users are
- How users interact with MUJI in-store and online
- Better understand MUJI’s market position and business goals
- Current e-commerce best practices employed by competitive companies and evaluating whether MUJI is utilizing them as well as the current site’s accordance to recognized usability principles.
The research completed were:
Contextual Inquiries: these are collaborative interviews and observing exercises with customers in the act of interacting with a product. My team entered two MUJI stores, one on 5th avenue and the other on 8th ave, and worked with seven customers in the act of browsing and purchasing items. The questions were tailored to the situation and not scripted. The goal was to refine MUJI’s target users as well as collect rich qualitative (and some quantitative) data concerning browsing habits and pain points.
Some key insights derived from the contextual inquiries were: Users want budget-friendlier items from MUJI; users are loyal and consider themselves brand ambassadors; users love to explore and discover; users are confused by MUJI’s labeling; users absolutely love MUJI’s aesthetic and replicate much of it in their homes; and lastly, while users usually come in with a product in mind, they might not leave with that exact product, but they will leave with something.
Usability Tests: To evaluate the current desktop and mobile site, our team brought in five participants and provided them with the follow scenarios (on both desktop and mobile):
- SCENARIO 1
You asked your friend where he got his cool-looking pen and he said he got it at MUJI.
TASK 1
Enter MUJI’s website and find a blue pen and add it to your cart - SCENARIO 2
You’re on the site and realized your old clock needs replacing.
TASK 2
From the page you’re currently on, please find a clock that is under $60 dollars and add to cart - SCENARIO 3
You’re all done browsing MUJI and are ready to check out.
TASK 3
Please checkout with the items currently in your cart (for privacy, you can add the following address: 1 Main Street, New York, NY, 10044 and you will not need to add your credit card info)
From the usability tests, we found overall tasks could be completed (only 1 task couldn’t be completed due to a bug), but that navigation was not intuitive, especially on mobile, where the navigation bar expanded without promoting a hierarchy to guide the user.
Heuristic Analysis of MUJI and MoMA Design Store (a competitor):
MUJI’s score card was:
- Findable: 3.7
- Accessible: 3.8
- Clear: 4.8
- Communication: 5.0
- Useful: 4.7
- Credibility: 4.9
- Controllable: 5.0
- Valuable: 5.0
- Learnable: 5.0
- Delightful: 4.0
MoMA’s score card was:
- Findable: 5.0
- Accessible: 5.0
- Clear: 5.0
- Communication: 5.0
- Useful: 4.9
- Credibility: 5.0
- Controllable: 5.0
- Valuable: 5.0
- Learnable: 5.0
- Delightful: 5.0
Task Flow (MUJI):
Feature Analysis of MUJI and three competitive and comparative companies:
Card Sorting: We provided users with a sample of 100 of MUJI’s inventory items and had them either sort them into predetermined categories and create their own categories. The open card sorting was fascinating as there was overlap in the general categories participants created which fueled my redesigned, re-organized, and re-labeled categories.
Other research techniques and tools utilized were: User journeys, user flows and task flows of the MoMA Design Store (MUJI’s competitor), competitive matrix, and MUJI’s business model canvas.
Sketches / Ideation
Prototype
Success in Usability Testing
I ended up doing two iterations of the redesign for the desktop and one for the mobile due to time constraints. As I mentioned, success for the redesign would be measurable decrease in time and frustration when navigating MUJI’s site and checking out. It would also be qualitative in the type of responses from users as they engaged with my redesign compared to those of users as they engaged with the current design.
These tests were all completed in person; I did not change the scenarios and tasks, except for mobile, due to time constraints, where I removed the second search (for a clock) .
The most powerful and exciting results from the usability tests were:
A decreased time to complete task (finding a blue pen):
- Current desktop range of time to find a pen: 00:59–2:59
- Redesign desktop range of time to find a pen: 00:47–1:10
A decreased time to complete task (finding a clock under $50):
- Current desktop range of time to find a clock: 00:49–1:43
- Redesign desktop range of time to find a clock: 00:36–00:57
A decreased reliance on the search bar:
- Current desktop number of times search bar was used: 80% of (8 out of 10) search tasks
- Current mobile number of times search bar was used: 0% of (0 out of 5) search tasks
Immense change in qualitative feedback (without having changed the questions asked from one design to the other):
Feedback while completing tasks on the current website:
- “Most sites feel like there is brand identity, MUJI was plain… MUJI was so bland for desktop. Is that really them?” — Danny
- “It’s not that great of a site, actually; It’s so different from their aesthetic and design. Mobile is too complicated, it doesn’t look similar to the other functional websites that are easier to use.” — Amy
- “I wish the site was more standard/similar to other e-commerce sites” — Josh
- “It’s not clear on mobile how to search” — Alex
Feedback while completing tasks on the redesigned website:
- “Using navigation bar was intuitive” — Chansoo
- “Graceful feeling with a nice simple flow” — Danny
- “Very similar to all the ecommerce sites, same features you’d expect such as reviews, description (I go to ASOS and amazon)” — Danny
- “Mobile site was really nice, it flowed really nicely in the checkout page, it was seamless” — Kyle
- “Easy to drill down” — Kyle
- “That’s the appeal, MUJI is for meticulous + organized people, which is how I am, and I felt that throughout most of the site” — Chansoo
- “It feels like I walked into the store, nice and calm, relaxing” — Danny
