The UX Shop: from an Idea to a Minimum Viable Product
A side project becoming more
Berlin, March 28th 2015, 9.00am.
I’m awake and my mind is boiling. I’m frenetically typing a mail in my bed while my girlfriend is still sleeping. My fingers are fast on my keyboard, I’m pretty sure my neck is getting red as it usually is when I’m focused/excited/drinking some fine whisky. I’m trying to write down an idea I’ve been thinking about all night. Sent.
That’s how the idea of The UX Shop was born, almost 1 year ago. And from the idea to our current version, a lot happened. That’s why we jumped in when we saw Samantha Zhang’s One Side Project per Year Challenge. Once a month we’ll be sharing our experiences bringing our concept to life and announcing what we plan to do next.
Ok but what is The UX Shop?
The concept didn’t change that much since I wrote the first draft.
The UX Shop could be defined today as an online store meeting a blog. A part of our content is a curation of real life resources for digital designers. The selection is made both by ourselves and by the members of the community. We pick up what we believe to be useful, reliable and beautiful products helping us to make our designer’s job right. Part of them are essential to our craft. The others simply inspire us and follow the Maslow’s pyramid — usable, aesthetic and lovable.
On the way, we added something very important: interviews of Influencers. Influencers are the people shaping our craft, inspiring designers and doers. We will meet them in their creative environment once a month. The result is a written interview followed by a selection of resources of their own.
Wait, but who are we?
We are a pair of complementary digital explorers :) A two-person team, who in times past have worked together on the benches of our engineering school.
Michael Sokol is a top software engineer. He whispers to the development stack like it was his GF. He worked in a couple of startups for the past 5 years and firmly believes that User Experience and Developer Experience should be at the heart of engineering a system’s architecture.
I (Cyril Schmitt) take care of the design part. I worked as Lead UX in Cellules, a creative agency based in Paris before flying on my own as a UX consultant. I think UX is not a job but a way of life. I like to say out loud “That joke was funny” when I actually hear a funny joke.
So where are we now?
We launched our first release in the middle of December 2015. We have been running it for 1 month now. So far we are satisfied with our first achievements:
- +5.000 visits (what we expected)
- A bounce rate of 15%
- A number of sales probably boosted by Christmas
- We won a Special Kudos awards on CSS Design Awards
- We were Site Of the Day on Frenchy Awards
- We received a warm welcome from the digital design community
February’s goal
- Gathering data to sharpen our KPIs
- Identifying our best traction channels
- Solving our struggles with marketing and social media strategies
- Reaching our growth projections in terms of sales and trafic (+20%)
- Interviewing 2 more influencers
- Opening our selections to the community
- Launching and sending our first newsletter (which you can subscribe here)
Wanna have a look at our project? Please visit http://theuxshop.com
Handpicked resources for/by digital designers
Interviews of people who care about users
Follow us: @theuxshop
If you want to give us a virtual hug, your can 💚 recommend this article and follow our stories on the One Side Project Challenge publication. We will be giving project updates on the 2nd of every month.
