An E-Commerce Toy Story
I was the sole UX and UI designer, briefed to create a brand new e-commerce website on desktop for a small, community focused toy store in London.
My Role: Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Duration: 2 weeks
Completed: September 2020
Tools: Sketch, Miro, Trello
Problem
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Creating an online store for a concept toy shop that could compete with large scale toy stores.
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Challenge
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Producing a desktop site for Little Worlds Toy Store that was created with the customer and user always in mind.
Deliverables
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Competitor analysis
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User research findings (user interviews, user testing)
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Card sorting
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User journeys
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Information Architecture
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User flows and screen flows
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High fidelity mock-up
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Final presentation
Outcomes
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Project completed on time​
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In-depth initial research of competitor websites and user interviews
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Well thought out customer journey map and website layout
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High fidelity mockups
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Overview
Little Worlds Toy Store is a concept store based in Seven Sisters, London. Well known for their exceptional customer service, they felt it was time to move to the online world of e-commerce, creating a website with the same high quality products and customer service feel.
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I was tasked with creating the layout and flow of the online store, keeping both the user and store values at the front of mind.
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How do I find out more? You may ask...just keep scrolling.
Discover & Define
Competitor analysis, user interviews and card sorting all helped in gaining an understanding of user's needs, goals and motivations when purchasing a toy online.
I summarised these key insights into a persona, so, meet Deborah! She is looking to buy her daughter a gift and is intrigued about Little Worlds Toy Store's new website.
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Next, considerations were taken around how Deborah would navigate the website. To find a product, she could use a global navigation bar, drop down menus, breadcrumbs and use of filters to find the prefect gift for her daughter!
Develop & Deliver
One of the most challenging moments came when I created a checkout process that I thought would enhance the customer service element. The idea allowed customers to select a specific time slot, by selecting a delivery time and date from a calendar.
During testing, users became confused and frustrated, not knowing how it would work. The error was taking myself out of the shoes of my persona, Deborah, mistakenly focusing my own assumptions and creating a process that was not user-friendly for my demographic. What I thought would be an amazingly creative solution, was quickly scrapped. A great learning curve for me, I was then able to concentrate on designing with my users in the forefront of my mind.
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After several iterations, gaining crucial feedback along the way after testing, I had the final designs. Feedback was positive and users liked the colour scheme, the inclusion of images and videos, dimensions and the ease of use of the website.
Conclusion
The taste of creating an e-commerce website for a toy store was a lot of fun! Learning, and carrying out a variety of UX processes in such a short space of time, such as card sorting, creating a persona and testing/iterating with a variety of users was a really cool experience. Learning the hard way that not all of my 'original' ideas would be a success, was a great learning experience. My old toys will always bring back fond memories, and so will this project!
