2021-2024
Rebranding a home-decor e-shop in Central Europe
Improving business image and boosting conversion rate for furniture distributor
My role
Working as the sole in-house UX/UI designer
Challenges
Establish work flow for redesign and iterations
General resistance against UX/UI trends from managements
Deliverables
Build up design system
Introduce and optimise user friendly components
Establish design work flow
Hand off redesign prototypes
Project process
1
Understand the business and the market
2
Set up redesign priorities and strategy
3
Understand business requirements and user needs
4
Redesign and rapid tests
5
Deployment
6
Usability testing
7
List and sort iteration tasks
8
Iterate and refine designs
Redesign work flow
Understand the business and the market
MOB Interier is a Slovak distributor running e-commerce in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Croatia. Its main e-shops include Novynabytok.sk, Hezkynabytek.cz, Zondo.hu, Zondo.ro, Zondo.hr etc.
In recent years, more home decor e-shops joint the local market in addition to the biggest international brands IKEA and JYSK. These competitors not only provided competitive products and price for customers but also kept improving user and service experience at a faster pace.
In a competitor analysis focusing on usability, it was found in 2021 that many of the smaller e-shops had provided better user experience.
As an e-shop brand not running any physical store, it was necessary to rely on user experience in web and service flows to create brand image with the assistance from other online marketing tools. However, the brand image was not well built and integrated. This weakness in UX and UI left the company in a disadvantaged position to compete in the market.
It was expected that the e-shop redesign can help to increase conversion rate and contribute to build up an up-to-date user experience.
Find supporting resources
As the first in-house UX/UI designer, I faced a challenge in finding reliable internal user data to support my design proposals. However, an effort was still made to find references which helped stakeholders understand the decision decisions.
Look for user numbers and feedback
Online traffic trackers
Website statistics
Online references (eg. Google, shopping platforms...)
Customer service
Surveys
Apply design psychology & best practices
Design guidelines (eg. Material Design)
Case studies focused on usability and psychology
Prioritise UX issues, business needs and solutions
Home page and category navigation
Before
At least six blocks intended to attract attentions without hierarchy
Too much information to focus
After
Reduced information disruption by focusing on sales, categories, brand logo, and necessary service information
Emphasise the atmosphere product image as subject to connect brand image to brand-new products
Before
Older fashioned components and aesthetics compared to competitors
Less visual pleasure, less attracted
Lack of focus on space-based category
Users cannot search by space
After
Reconstructed navigation and information on header
Created flexible space in the navigation bar for seasonal sales and special promotions
Product list and filtering
Before
Incomplete filtering functions (users cannot apply multiple options at once)
Inconvenient experience when users want to search products by changing different mother categories
Unorganised icon styles on product categories, products presented in an old way, not adapted to wider screen
Users are not assured if the product services are well updated and provided
After
Improved filter UX by (a.) allowing multiple choices, (b.) redesigning colour filter by removing colour description on desktop and adding a text search bar, (c.) adding open and close functions, and (d.) adding sliders to all unit filters
Unified the style of graphic icons, redesigned product card, adjusted product preview from 3 columns to 4 columns
Product page
Before
Missing customised product pictures
Users feel less atmosphere, less enjoy the product images, rather leave for other e-shops
Unstructured product description and specs
Create obstacles in building product knowledge
After
Optimised gallery size and experience and started to improve the quality of product picture
Reconstructed information by (a.) separating marketing copy, product details from product specs (b.) combining repetitive specs (c.) categorising similar specs to one group
Cart and check out
Before
Not organised design style and colours in cart
Users feel inconsistency
Confusing optional flows at last step
Users need time to think about if they want to log in or shop as a guest
After
Changed log-in user flow and adopted 2 column design to smooth the process
Limited the use of filled action colour (green) and brand colour (red) to align with the general redesign style
Accounts and self services
Before
Self services are not fully accessible through account
Users may not be assured with the value of being a member
After
Connected to comparison, favourite tools, and some self services
Before
Unstructured service information
It is more difficult to understand service details compared to other shops
After
Reconstructed contact details, FAQ, and other service pages
Impact on business
Building up a fresh and up-to-date brand image
With lots of effort by a small team of developers, the redesign versions of websites in 5 languages (SK, CZ, HU, RO, HR) have been deployed after the middle of February in 2024.
Conversion rate boosted by 128% in low season
The conversion rate of main site has boosted by 128% in 2024 spring. The recorded high rate is even 11% higher than the last peak season in 2023 November.
Motivating UX iteration plans
In addition to the positive business impact, the value of UX and UI just started to become visible in the company now. How to remain a competitive pace at iterations will be the next challenge.
Takeaways
Use scrum/agile methods to construct design scopes
During redesign, I was benefited in scrum and agile management. Although there are some cons of product management in this way, the capacity of one designer is limited in handling design “debts” accumulated for years. We used the management methods to construct design scopes. It helped me to systematically work on a variety of UX and UI tasks step by step.
Build up connections and trust in a team before design impact
As a foreigner/new comer/new role in the company proving UX values in the company, I realised that building trust for my profession in UX and UI from the managements is highly important. While looking for the best solutions, I empathised the needs of departments and used various resources and quick usability test among colleagues to build up the understanding of UX knowledge in the company.
Consider introducing quantitative tools to track performance
Followed by the deployment of the first version of the redesign project, it is also found that empathy mapping and qualitative testing have its limit for us to track the effects of UX and UI changes on our business revenue. Also, while more responsible departments involve in iterations, stakeholders are not able to process all levels of decisions on the product. Sooner or later, we may have to adopt quantitative tracking tools to assist us in analysing users’ needs.