Best Regards, Petr Kanda
When the sales made the client believe that one day workshop could help them in kicking off the project the customer agreed.
I was ready with a bunch of questions separated into sections and the workshop was very successful and very informative. We had a list of facts from the underwear world and also a lot of hypotheses and mainly customers goals and what they expected from the redesign.
After analysing the whole workshop it was evident that this project is going to be fun. I already had so many ideas how to improve their e-shop but let's not jump to the solution gun.
From the actual workshop came a lot of ideas as well. The business goal was clear. Sell more than our closed Prague store and make sure that the customer will always buy the right size and we will be happy and over the moon. Sure thing, just watch me work, Lol. Btw the closed Prague's branch was having turnover of 600 - 700 000 Czk per month so the
challenge was clear.
The fact was that women mostly got their sizes wrong and even in the shop where the assistants with trained eye can guess the right size, the majority of females are very hard on believing otherwise about their real size.
Women were always worried that buying bra online would result in a never ending product returning circle.
Create a way to make sure that the web will be able to match shoppers' expectations in buying goods that fit.
Connect information from the stores with the web site and eliminate wrong sizes.
Sell with ease products online with minimum of returned goods.
Web should substitute or do even better than closed Prague branch that made monthly turn over of 700 000 Czk per month.
Redesign the web so it would be more usable.
Happy and returning customers who don't have to think twice if shopping online or in a physical store.
- Field study
- Competitor analysis
- User flow (various scenarios)
- Rebuild the whole admin environment
- Usability testing of competitors
- Usability testing of wireframes
Get out of the building and observe the real users in their environment
We did a field trip to one of their shops where we were observing with consent of customers the process of selection of bras. Luckily I didn't have to be in the changing booth but that's ok as I also have a wild imagination.
Competitor Analysis
Another path we took was competitive analyses that gave us great insight into what the other related businesses are doing and mainly what they are doing wrong. Majority
of them had static tables for choosing size and some were more interesting offering size guides. Well at this point we could not know how successful all competitors' tactics were but it gave us great insight into what
they do and what they don't do.
We also incorporated a 1 step buying process that can speed up shopping for single items. This was a great idea from competitors' analyses that we really liked and via usability
testing we got confirmed that these hypotheses really ring the bell with the users. Testers were like “I want to choose one thing, pay and go about my business. We removed all the unnecessary noise that was in a way
of their speedy need to select, buy and go by adding a button that said Quick checkout.
Research into various underwears sizes
Further research into sizes and data tables that would help us to create a one and unique table that would somehow incorporate all various sizes and believe me that each manufacturer has different markings so it can get very confusing for the customer. This unique data table was later laid off by the PM as something that we can sell to them in the future. Don't shoot all your bullets at once.
Usability testing
Then we did usability testing of one of the client's competitors' websites mainly due to the fact that the client's current web site that did barely 10 sales per month was totally unsuitable for usability testing. Out of 6 testers that we had there was only one that mentioned a website that used a size guide to buy the right bra. So here it was 1 of 6 but we went for this idea anyway as the tester said she never bought the wrong size through this web size guide ever. Our hypotheses and facts got confirmed by the testers, so the plan ahead was pretty clear.
Analytical data
The old e-shop had wrongly set their e-commerce Google Analytics and therefore any information here wasn't helping us much.
Idea of connecting store with e-shop
The thing was that the shop assistants always got the size right and I suggested connecting this with the new e-shop. So if a woman comes to the shop and leaves with a fitting bra it would be great if her measurement information could be used again. Idea that customers will be filling anything disappeared like kettle steam as no one wants to fill anything about themselves unless there is a good enough benefit in it.
Through the client we suggested that the shop assistants will be collecting information. Basically collecting some size information with name and email address and when the customer was leaving from the shop, their details were pushed into the database. By the time customers got home they already had set account for the new e-shop with their correct sizes in it. This then helped to target more suitable products to the customers and slowly started pushing them also to shop online.
The other part was how to successfully convey new customers who just don't have time to go to shop? We created a measuring guide that in the end calculated proper size based on typed information. This was then connected with product and product detail pages and when you fill it once the whole web experience was more suited to your needs. And yeah developers loved us for all these ideas that we further validated during usability testing.
Idea for Virtual wallet
The scenario that there will always be a reason to return received goods didn't disappear. From usability testing it came out that customers would love this feature. Also good for the business as they can keep the users more engaged. I obviously suggested giving them the possibility to get their money back. Mainly we wanted to keep the customers to be engaged and having extra credit as one of the testers said: “It's like when you find money”
This particular company did not have their process thought through and ways to cooperate with UX needed to be established. I suggested a better way of working that was less of a waterfall process and more of a lean approach that due to lack of will to test iterate, test iterate etc.turned into agile punk.
Someone even mentioned that we don't need to document much but that quickly turned into no documentation at all. Anyway we did manage to work together and I had to satisfy my needs for testing & iteration only once.
I liked all those countless hours of discussions over black and white wire frames where the DEV were chipping in with their ideas, some of them very valuable and some of them just pure lazy. They also wanted to make their lives easier and were very specific in some parts like filtration and categories. "We have to do it like this as your design filter doesn't make much sense to us". Sure eventually I figured out that they have their set of ways and that they don't like to deviate much from it. In my head I was already saying bye bye to most of the great ideas for improvement.
From homepage to admin all needed to be planned
It has to be interactive so spider web it is
What I finally delivered was a wireframe with only 1 iteration that I was then submitting to the web designer and he worked on the overall UI. This guy had some cool ideas and I can't resist asking the team why he didn't join the project earlier. The so called process in that particular company did not count on the UI guy to come and help from the start, unfortunately.
At this stage the new e-shop is on the way and has all its UI design finalised. Luckily most of UX ideas stayed in and were carried further to the development as I made sure that client knew about those and that when I am working elsewhere on somebody else's dream, that my hard UX work will eventually see the light of the day. If some stuff doesn't get into production it's not good but I know that I put everything into this project as I always do.
I am no longer working on this project so I can only hope that all is going in the right direction.
Before I left I helped to prepare a plan of other features that should be implemented over time and at later stages.
I also prepared a set of metrics that would be great to follow together with more testing methods such as plan for A/B testing and how to do it so the team can further monitor and improve e-shops progress.
Don't hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to help and make your product more usable and therefore more successfull.