Problem Statement
Plaza Art aimed to boost their online sales by revamping their eCommerce website. They were concerned that the poor user experience on their existing website was contributing to low sales. Specific issues included the layout of the product pages, overly simple navigation, and overall aesthetic shortcomings.
Goals
Visual Update
More Comprehensive Navigation
UX Improvement on Product Pages & Bulk Orders
Discovery
I was excited about this project, as working on eCommerce websites was a new endeavor for me. We began by creating a sitemap and wireframes to organize the information architecture and new navigation. Additionally, I developed a few concepts to establish the project's art direction.
CASE STUDY
Plaza Art Website Redesign
Plaza Art sought a new website to increase online orders, improve navigation, and enhance the overall user experience.
PROJECT DATE
Mar 2024 - Aug 2024
PROJECT TYPE
Website Redesign & UX Improvements
COMPANY / CLIENT
Plaza Art
SCOPE OF WORK
Wireframes, Mockups
ROLE
Senior Web Designer & UX Designer
Define & Concept
We started by developing a new sitemap, rethinking the naming conventions and user journeys for specific navigation menu items. We then wireframed each webpage to ensure the information architecture aligned with the desired user experience.
Design
Once the wireframes were approved, I designed the first version of the homepage to set the project's art direction. The client loved the direction, and after a few tweaks, I designed the remaining pages for review.
Challenges
As we all know, there’s rarely a perfect design process. During this project, we had to manage an interesting team dynamic on the client side, where a clear decision-maker had strong opinions about what was best for the project.
Issue #1:
For example, the company owner considered one of their competitors as the benchmark for excellent user experience. Consequently, we often had to use the competitor’s website as a reference for nearly every element we added.
Solutions
Because I value strong collaboration and empathetic communication, I worked through these challenges to find effective solutions.
Solution to Issue #1:
We empathized with the owner's perspective, understanding how easy it is to fixate on a company you admire. However, we positioned ourselves as the experts on every call, advocating for the best user experience based on our expertise, rather than simply mimicking what the competitor was doing.
Results
We aimed for the homepage to serve as a high-level landing page, directing traffic to more intentional areas of the website. The client strongly requested that the main menu be extremely detailed, almost functioning as a quick filtering system for users to find products faster. We expressed concerns that this approach might overwhelm users, but they insisted because their competitor did it that way.
Despite the challenging conversations, we are a few months from the launch of phase 1 of this website redesign.
