Helen O’Connor: Phoenix and Eclipse Collection
Team:
2 UX Designers
Tools:
Pen & Paper
Miro
Figma
Duration:
1 month sprint
Deliverables:
Clickable prototype
Methods:
Competitor analysis
Usability testing
Affinity mapping
User flows
Ideation
Sketching
Wireframe
Prototype
The Brief:
The Helen O’Connor team currently have a tailored made bridal line (Phoenix Collection) and is about to launch a new event wear line (Eclipse Collection). They would love to have a redesigned website for a better shopping experience. The goal is to have both collections on the website and have a way for customers to contact HOC staff and have online bookings/consultations for in-person fittings. With the growing business, they would also like the website to be accessible to the US market.
Our Solution:
After testing the initial website, we noticed that the issue lies in the findability and lack of information about the dresses. We redesigned the website using components that can help sort the dresses and added sections to the product description pages to help with enquiries and considerations before purchasing. Further details in purchasing a dress were located on a new FAQ page as we found that there were many small details about shipping, cost, sizing and delivery that users were curious about. Click here for Helen O’Connor’s current site!
Research
What are other bridal companies doing?
Through competitor analysis, we found that the more luxurious the brand, the fewer details there were about products, however, most would offer fittings. Some bridal stores would custom make the dress based on online hip, waist, and bust measurements alone and don’t actually offer fittings. We decided that we wanted to incorporate both of these features into our design to ensure the best experience. The client was also willing to try and test other e-commerce platforms however, due to time constraints we were unable to fully implement a new design on a different platform.
What do the brides think?
We gave five brides-to-be a scenario and observed how they navigated through the website. We ran into problems such as...
Legitimacy: No contact numbers, reviews, return policies, accurate addresses or email addresses. Only has Instagram.
About and process: Questions about Helen as a designer, and the process of purchasing/enquiring a dress. Information for the about me section was insufficient.
Product Description: No information on shipping details, fabric, care, fitting/sizing.
Layout/ formatting: Issues with loading large images and too much scrolling.
User Flow
This helps outline what journey we want the user to go through. We have added purchasing and enquiry options including adding your measurements and contact details.
During our discussions with the HOC team, we clarified that bridal wear is custom whereas event wear has fixed sizing, which led to questions about sizing charts.
Sketching
We started brainstorming and coming up with possible design solutions with a focus on the product and landing pages due to users having the most issues in these areas.
In the product pages, we focused on image size and product information such as material, fitting, enquiries and purchasing.
In the landing pages, we brainstormed different ways to introduce the Eclipse collection and how to layout both collections together. We introduced different navigation titles due to users not understanding what the original titles are.
Annotated Wireframes
Navigation
Landing Page
FAQs
Phoenix Collection: Product Page
Eclipse Collection: Product Page
Phoenix Collection:
Product Description Page
Eclipse Collection:
Product Description Page
Checkout
What’s next?
After testing the prototype with our users and implementing the feedback, we would need to ask for a software developer’s opinion on some of the features we planned on implementing. Together, we would work out what the limitations were for certain features and adjust the design accordingly. We would also need to test out different e-commerce platforms and be given a budget to potentially test out different layouts and platforms. However, due to time constraints, we had a limitation of only using a certain e-commerce company to build the website.
What did I learn?
Though we had many meetings with our main stakeholders, there were a number of stakeholders we were unable to get hold of due to clashing schedules. When the final handover was presented, the stakeholders (that were unable to come to previous meetings) attended and gave us a lot of feedback that we were no longer able to unable to implement due to project duration. We had a realisation that it was extremely important to push for clients to be at these meetings to discuss options and feedback as they were also users of the HOC website. I personally learnt that asking the right questions is essential. At the start of the project, we were not exactly sure what the website issues were for HOC staff. Only after asking the right questions, we realised that there was a lot of information we were not exposed to that would have given us more understanding and would have helped us design a better website that accommodated all users.
Helen O’Connor Now
Throughout the months after we finished this project, Helen O’Connor slowly implemented the changes we suggested. Click here to view their current website.
