Arty’s E-commerce Design — Concept Project
Design Brief was to research and design a new site for a local art supply store — this project was completed in a 2 week sprint.
There was also mention of the elements and features that Arty’s wanted to keep as part of its long standing history in the community, serving local residents and local businesses for over 90 years.
They would like to keep customer service as a priority as well as continually producing curated products, maintain reasonable pricing and keeping the feel of the store local. Lastly, through the website, they wanted to showcase their key products and maintain brand image.
things that need to be included are;
“have clear ways of locating specific products
support single pages for each item
have an efficient way of purchasing one or more products
update customers on products that are currently popular
provide very easy means of contacting the business”
The first thing I decided to do was some competitor analysis in order to give me an idea of the types of features that are out there and available from their possible major competitors.
It was also important to actually visit another art store in the local area to get into store layout, customer interaction, browsing habits from customers and organisation of products
I also worked with a persona in order to keep her at the centre of design decisions and feature decisions to see if her needs can be met.
“I rely on search to find specific products”
“I like to see the items online from all angles”
“shopping for art should be refined and without clutter”
I also spent some time researching usability, and card sorting to ensure that some of their most popular items were in categories which really had meaning and could be identified with for people who regularly shop for art supplies, and additionally for any new customers to the website.
Once I had decided on the best usability of the required features, and organised the menu categories.
Building a user journey around a persona allowed us to think of different options and possibilities that this typical user could go through. I learnt from this about additional features, such as same day delivery was really important for some very busy creatives. This was included in the final design.
Below you will see the proposed mid fidelity prototype with so many required features that have been incorporated.
https://invis.io/U6NED47B3N2 — this link will take you to a live version of a prototype.
After several iterations of the prototype and feedback, organising out the different categories of feedback allowed me to prioritise areas for improvement
Future changes for the site would include live chat, machine learning, online blogging, video reviews.
This proposal shows a rough overview of the steps I have taken in order to research, and design a product which meets the needs of the business and the needs of the local community. Arty’s do not want to lose their local feel and business, and this website provides an online extension of their great offering and customer base. While some of their busy clients can still rely on the brand, their curated products and great customer service, they are able to have trusted products delivered. Those who like the instore experience, can start their shopping online and then go into the store to talk more about it,or collect, and lastly, the product request finder which allows locals to have a voice about what products the supply store has, and know that the sourcing will be local, trusted and high quality.
Through further testing, the website can be optimised to allow a very smooth, quick and easy but secure checkout process. Further work would also include the best ways to carry the brand into the online presence, to ensure the user experience is seamless from online to in-store, or vice-versa.
