Boutique Redesign | Feven Debelo

Lit Boutique

High end women's boutique located in Boston, MA.

Project Overview

Background:

Lit Boutique is a high-end women's boutique located in Boston, Massachusetts. Their vision is to create a space where women can feel inspired to dress powerfully.

Challenge

The client is looking to add to their online presence. They already have an online store but it needs updating. Through an improved eCommerce website, they want to be able to showcase their products while maintaining their brand image/vision: “create a space where women can be inspired and dress for power moments” while incorporating great customer service.

Research & Synthesis

Plus & Delta of Current Site

I began this project by conducting a plus/delta of the current website as it was. The current website had a number of different navigation issues and lacked features that would have been helpful. As can be seen by the table to the right, there were more delta points than pluses.

Usability Test on Current Site

After completing my initial research on the site, I decided to conduct a usability test on the current site. My goal with the usability test was to see how user's responded to the website. As can be seen in the image to the right, there were four tasks assigned. None of the users were able to complete all of the tasks correctly.

Competitive Analysis

After gathering data on the current site, I broadened my research and took a look at some competitors. I first looked at some direct competitors (boutiques that sold similar items to Lit Boutique.) I noted that there were a vast number of different features that these sites incorporated to help users that Lit Boutique lacked. Features like breadcrumbs, magnifying products, quick-buy, etc. were all lacking on Lit Boutique.

Comparative Analysis

In addition, I also conducted a comparative analysis on an e-commerce site that sells a wide variety of items. Once again, Lit Boutique was lacking when it came to features in comparison to indirect competitor.

Open Card Sort

After doing my analysis, I conducted an open card sort to understand how users would label different products. It was clear from my initial usability tests that the website had navigation that was not intuitive for users. For the card sort, I provided 3 different users with 20 different products directly from the Lit Boutique website. I provided users with both an image of the product as well as a label to ensure there was no miscommunication. Users gave multiple category names that they believed was appropriate. As can be seen on the figure to the right, labels that are circled represent repetition amongst different users.

Define

Site Map

Using the information I received from my open card sort, I was able to create a site map.

Primary Persona

Personas were based off of common customers that shop on online boutiques. As someone who lives in Boston, I was able to understand/talk with the types of people that would shop at online boutiques.

Personas

Secondary Persona

User Flows

After creating personas, I was able to create userlows for my users. As can be seen on the images to the right, there were two main user flows. The top right userflow shows the final checkout flow for customers. Someone like Kate (who would want to quickly navigate through site) would have a quickbuy option whereas someone like Jack would press the product for more information. The second userflow shows product discovery for users.