Shop Main
UX | E-Commerce Website
For our second project in the UX design course, we were asked to individually design a web platform that would increase Main St, Vancouver boutique sales, online engagement (with shopmain.ca) and increase social media engagement.
The problem
Although local shopping has been steady with evidence of growth, local retailers are predicted to lose $1.6 billion in sales to online and American-owned stores. Due to poor web presence, a Vanity reports that Canada is venerable to foreign e-tailers swamping the market, due to the changing habits of the consumer from retail to online. Although research shows that online shopping is on the rise, it also highlighted the fact the consumers are increasing being “digitally influenced” through product research and price comparison online. As a growing concern within the community, it is more important that ever to bring solutions hat can help bring a greater sense of community and financial stability.
The Opportunity
Aware of the how Canadians are predicted to increase spending online by 50% between 2014–19, the business community of ‘ShopMain.ca” have agreed together that the most effective and financially risk averse method would be to create a combined online product store. Not only to increase interest in shopping local, the aim of the website would be to supplement the sales of main st shops as well as to grow the online community engagement through their website and social media channels.
To reduce the need to educate users on a new website and name, my solution is to re-design the website based on its current branding to increase engagement and sales.
Deliverable & Constraints
For the initial launch of the web store it will only provide online shopping to one type of product to ensure its viability and success for full product roll out. The category of books was selected and will be used to deliver a mid-fidelity website prototype in order to collect feedback on design and strategy from the community before moving forward to development. The time constraint for this project was two weeks.
Research
Research was conducted through gathering information from surveys and in-person interviews, domain and organisational research.
Hypothesis & Assumptions
As a person who buys books online, I went into the interviews and surveys with the rough hypothesis that users prefer online shopping due to availability and price. As local stores can not always compete on price, I went into the research looking to discover what user liked about local shopping and to see how I could replicate this online.
Interviews & Surveys
In order to discovery the strengths and weaknesses of Main st shopping, I choose to interview people from mostly outside the area. I conducted six interviews and two surveys.
Interview
As I did the interviews first, I targeted people who looked over the age of 18 as from this age it is likely they have the means to online shop independently of any guardian and have the education level to read.
I grouped my questions around three topics: main st experience, local shopping and online book shopping.
Although I had screening questions, for my first interview I chose to ignore the fact they were not who I was looking for as I thought it might shed light on online shopping and reading habits. However this made most of my questions irrelevant to their needs and motivations and that they would in now way be a potential user for shopmain.ca. What was taken from this experience was that in order to be viable from launch, shopmain.ca had to appeal to user who were already comfortable and trusting of online shopping. My subsequent interviews were screened and included users who had all online shopped and bought books from stores and online.
Main St
- too expensive area to shop
- only come to the area when they have multiple things to do
Local Shopping
- only shop at boutiques for gifts, for every day items it too expensive
- would shop local if they had better online stores that offered shipping
- like to shop local for the experience of browsing and immediacy
- would like to shop more local
Online Book Shopping
- preference for of cheaper prices and convenience
- they could find what they were looking for on the first try
- big box stores had more product availability and selection
Survey
A total of 32 people responded to two surveys and supported a lot of the findings in regards to local shopping and book buying habits from the user interview. Both research methods highlighted the primary drive of purchase was based on budget and product availability and the desire to buy local was to find something unique and to support local businesses and communities. In regards to books, one survey stated that the users prefer to buy books in store, however we would have to follow up to discovery whether this may have been ‘digitally influenced’ beforehand.
The surveys results to “Why do you like to shop local independent stores/boutiques?” highlighted that users wanted to support local stores and liked how they offered unique products. Although I thought there would be more respondence in the ‘convenience’ category but the again it depends on how you define convenience.
Key Findings
From the collect the common key insights included:
Domain & Organisational Research
For the domain research (books, online shoppers) for this project I focused Amazon, Indigo-Chapters and one of the biggest stores on the west coast Powells books. What surprised me the most was how similar they were in terms of information architect (how they design and layout the information) and payment procedure. Through highlighting discounts, markdowns and incentives to save, Indigo-Chapters would most likely appeal to my user. None really showcased or support any sort of authentic community around the store.
Due to the time constraint, I was unable to survey or interview book store business owners and reasons for their lack of website presence or store. From my research, none of them offered any extra value (in terms of community or personalisation) that they would get from a physical book store or any incentives to save or buy local. From the survey results most of the participants discovered a boutique store mainly by walking by which demonstrates how poor boutique websites are reaching potential buyers.
Lastly I turned my eyes to Shopmain.ca for review based on the project goals, demonstrating that it was lacking in all defining categories.
Online Shoppers
According to Alex McEacher from Sweet Tooth Rewards there are 5 main type of shoppers, two of which relate directly to my survey questions “ Why do you not like to shop at independent/boutique stores” as underlined.
As you can see the overwhelming response to this question clearly identifies the price as a paint point for the user.
Online purchases
According to LOCO BC (a local business initiate in British Columbia), not surprisingly it identifies as books as the number one most frequent online purchase. This is also confirmed from my survey showing most of the user bought their book online.
Independent Book Stores
I also collected research on how independent book stores can compete with online store large market share in this category. According to Lesley Fletch from Retail Council of Canada, their research has shown that they can in fact survive, they will just need to adjust and become more than just retail stores.
Overall Summary of Research + Hypothesis
Through the results of the survey and user interviews the main pain point is the price and availability. It is through my user interviews and domain research that by adding value to the purchase either monetarily or socially, the I theorised that the user would justify paying a premium for the added return.
Key learnings on research: Have a some sort of hypothesis at the beginning for a clearer understand of what you are looking for. More iterations on survey questions to clarify what data you want to receive. Collect users age for a point of reference to technology and income level.
Planning
Storyboard
Persona — Meet Melissa
From the data collected I identified the common characteristics and their goals, motivations and frustrations. A key insight identified was that when online shopping for books, the users already had a book in mind rather than brows and then buy online. And although they used social media on a daily basis they were more likely to be influenced by family and friends than advertisers.
User scenario
User Flow
Due to the persona primary motivation of finding what they want and for the right price, I focused my user flow on how to streamline that process of finding exactly what the user was after, as directly selling to them or interfering with their purchase would most likely frustrate them and leave. This was achieved by making the search accessible from every page and making the process search and payment process similar to existing online book stores.
Site Map
The first time I designed the site map, I did not include ‘deals’ in the menu navigation. At first I thought this may be too direct but after examining to the strong results of the perception of boutique as expensive I decided that the new website would have to clearly and quickly communicate that you could find something within your budget.
The Solution
Below are the three main screens that would help Melissa with her goals while supporting her motivations and minimising her frustrations. Although I started with a rough sketch on paper — I quickly went to my comfort zone, Illustrator to hash out ideas.
See live prototype (limited interactive)
Without interfering with her main goal of purchasing, I supported her desire to save by showcasing saving incentives on all pages and all parts of the site including the navigation bar, side column and body copy. To support Shop Main’s social media goals and Melissa’s goal to save and motivation for community the promotion aim is also to cross promote other business while keeping users on main for as long as possible. On the home page I showcased a unique item that a buyer would receive after spending over a certain amount, as well as where to find out what events are going on.
From the presentation, I was advised however my saving incentives on my product page were too far away price of the product and may get missed.
User Testing
I conducted one user testing but upon reflection I realised I directed the user on what to do as I was in a rush. I remembered them not seeing the incentives but I did not really take that as important as it was. The only feedback received that I actually used was that the shopping process was too complicated and so I spilt it up over three pages.
Reflection
The process of gathering data should not be rushed as without careful thought you might get data that does not really give any insights. The process of creating a mid-fidelity prototype is also a lot of work and I underestimated how long each step would take. I ended up not using Sketch to create my mockups as I felt like we did not have enough time to learn and create designs in a new program without much frustration. Learning new programs however is part of the point of this course and I will take extra time to learn about the program next time before the pressure to create is on. I also left no time for testing but I do see the importance of it as part of the design process and will structure my time accordingly next time to ensure its inclusion.
