My Role: UX/UI Designer + Researcher
Timeline: 3 month
Tools: Adobe XD + Photoshop
Team: Director of UX & Content and Director of Technology
Overview
FactoryOutletStore is an online retail website dedicated to top brand-name manufacturers and specializes in the categories of GPS, home/office phones, personal care, pet products,etc.
Problems
1. Outdated style
2. Cluttered, messy
3. Hard to navigate
3. Unattractive and generic banners and images
4. Design styles are all over the place
Goals & Solutions
1. Declutter and simplified
2. Design with purpose
3. Develop a style guide that for the design team and centralize the design language
Understanding The Users
E-commerce Best Practices
In order to make sure that our team understand the principles and best practices of designing an e-commerce website on mobile devices, I searched and read many articles from credible websites to establish the best design practices, such as Baymard Institute and Nielsen Norman Group.
Stakeholder Interview
I interviewed our brand managers and customers service staffs to understand the pain points of our customers and the problems holistically. And here are what I found:
Who are our customers
1. Most of our customers come from Google search, PLA, and search keyword(SEO). Our customers know what they want when they visit our store online.
2. We have less success with customers who are not sure what to buy.
3. The suggested items on our websites are not converting.
What do they complain about?
1. Buyers mislist merchandises. Errors on the information.
2. Order tracking/ Returning order
User Testings
We did 2 usability tests on our current mobile website to find out what they think about our website.
1. Looks cluttered and outdated
2. “View All” on every tiles is redundant and unnecessary.
3. Not sure what business is this. (FOS vs Garmin)
4. Feels like the are different websites but on the same page (Inconsistent design and copy)
Results
1. Search engine is slow and doesn't help users narrow down the search result
2. Lack of filters causes frustration.
3. Lack of feedback from the click of a button cause confusion.
Findings and Hypothesis
Our customers are NOT our only target users
The reasons why the conversion rate is not improving because our website is not designed to let customers shop more. Therefore we are not getting new customers.
Most of our customers know what they want. They just come to buy what they want to buy and leave without buying anything extra.
But what about other types of customers? If we want to increase the conversion rate, we need to design a website that also helps our potential customers to look and shop more.
The Trust Issue
I analyzed the results of the stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, and usability test, I discovered one major problem we have besides the technical usability issues, that is trust. The lack of reviews, bad and inconsistent UI, generic content, and horrible user experience are the reasons why we are not able to gain trusts from our potential customers, hence no sale.
What’s should we do?
We need to establish trust with our customers by giving a great first impression and providing great user experience by helping our customers finding what they need easily.
Wireframes
The goal of the homepage redesign is to quickly capture visitor's attention and show them a wide range of products without overwhelming them. The homepage should be clean, organized, and easy to navigate. My goal is to give them the best first impression as best as possible, increase interaction and engagement, and reduce bounce rates.
Hi-Fidelity Mockup
Brand Specific Page
Browse Page
Product Page
Prototype