iLYSM
Redesigning an unconventional website without losing its ethos.
Overview
Details
Project
Responsive Website RedesignRole
UX DesignerLead
Trello Board
Usability Test Script Drafting
Heuristic Analysis
Design Studio
Spec Documentation
Final Presentation DraftTeam
Brandon Bailey
Jaime Huang
Neil JacksonDuration
3 weeks
iLYSM.com wants to support artists, by connecting artistic expression with everyday objects. The existing site has a brutalist aesthetic and an exploratory ethos: a deep single page with content branches that were accessible by various methods of horizontal scrolling. It sells a line of high-top tabi shoes and uses the proceeds to support artists. The problem is the sales numbers are brutal.
Our Challenge was to redesign the site so sales increased fourfold and the e-commerce functionality could scale as iLYSM introduced more shoe SKUS and a $99 Art Store over the next 6 months. All while maintaining exploratory ethos and design aesthetic.
This project was balancing act between the founder’s desire to be edgy and unconventional and the need to sell some shoes. Getting the owner of the site to accept a more conventional solution would be the key determinant of our success.
How Might We help an artistically-inspired website find the right balance between its brutalist style and the imperative to be a functional e-commerce platform that can support Artists?
Discover
We researched the issues with the existing site using the following UX methodologies
1. Stakeholder Interview with the founder and our point of contact who had recently been bought into the company.
2. Feature Analysis of current site with competitors and comparators nominated by ILYSM and niche sites they liked.
3. Heuristic Analysis of the current mobile and desktop sites primarily focused on the functioning of the sites rather than the more subject dimensions of the design.
4. Usability testing of the current site.
5. Interviews people nominated by the stakeholders.
The stakeholder interview was our opportunity to gauge who was driving the redesign; Was the founder sold on the idea and how far could we push before her desire to protect the ethos of the site became an obstacle?
The feature analysis provided some guidance as to the standard features we would need to incorporate in an expanded e-commerce site: multi-level navigation, search and archive functionality.
The heuristic analysis rendered a long list of recommendations, even though we steered away from the more subjective metrics for fear the founder would reject anything that smelled of convention or industry standard.
Our Diagnosis
The synthesis of our results started by developing two personas, Mel the Edgy illustrator and Cole the Sneakerhead to represent the archetypes of the two customers iLYSM had described and parts of our research had illuminated. We represented Mel’s experience buying shoes on the current site using the journey mapping technique before creating a better e-commerce experience using a user flow.
We performed an affinity mapping of the interview and usability testing quotes and observations. The many insights of our Research fell within 4 main problem areas
In addition I suggested that we group all the post-its as positive, neutral or a negative as an impactful visual demonstration to the founder that she needed to accept change.
A Prescription
When we presented these results to the iLYSM team they agreed with our findings, and we were able to turn the meeting into a Design Studio: a visual brainstorming session to surface the features required to revive sales. This moved us towards a Minimum Viable Solution that should include the following features:
1. Branding: Reduce the presence of the animated smile. Increase messaging of the mission to support artists by promoting the shop in the zine interviews, but keep it fun.
2. Navigation: Make primary navigation visible. Let content float by rather than require users to scroll horizontally.
3. Images: Expand imagery used to sell shoes. Redeploy existing product page image carousel to get more content above the fold.
4. E-commerce: Bring interface in-line with industry standards.
Treatment and Testing
We took these insights and went through four rounds of design and testing, adjusting the mid-fidelity and high-fidelity designs as each round of usability testing dictated.
Discharge
The Founder was very happy with our final prototype and recommendations. We had demonstrated where her existing site was failing and she was delighted we had preserved its ethos while giving her a more intuitive and scalable e-commerce interface that could be the foundation for growth in the months ahead.
In our debrief she asked how she might implement changes to the existing site without spending too much on a developer. It was not clear if this was just a quick fix, while they built out our design, or a sign that the funds to repair the website might not be available.
We would maintain that if iLYSM is to grow implementing the design we presented is a necessary investment. We hope they find the funds.
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But Wait There is Still More…
For those interested here are some artifacts from this project.