Case study:
Perfect Petals!
Role: UX designer and UX researcher.
Responsibilities: conducting interviews, paper, and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs and responsive design.
Project overview.
— The Challenges
Perfect Petals is a small local florist store that has limited space and can’t fit many customers at the same time.
— The Goal
The goal is to offer customers online shopping with an easy step-by-step, user-friendly, and fast shopping experience.
— The Target Audience
Local customers who want to see options of flowers before walking into a store to buy flowers.
User Research Summary.
I conducted user interviews, which I then turned into empathy maps to better understand the target user and their needs. I discovered that many target users treat online flower shopping as a relaxing and healing activity when they need a break from work. However, many shopping florist websites are overwhelming and confusing to navigate, which frustrated many target users. This caused a normally enjoyable experience to become challenging for them, defeating the purpose of relaxation.
User Research: Pain points
Personas
— Problem Statement
Samantha is a graphic designer who needs to know what kind of flowers the local florist store carries before she walks into the shop.
— User Story
As a woman, she wants to see the variety of beautiful flowers before she purchases.
User Journey map
I created a user journey map of Mahalia’s experience using the site to help identify possible pain points and improvement opportunities.
Sitemap
Difficulty with website navigation was a primary pain point for users, so I used that knowledge to create a sitemap.
My goal here was to make strategic information architecture decisions that would improve overall website navigation. The structure I chose was designed to make things simple and easy.
Paper Wireframes
Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensures that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. For the home screen, I prioritized a quick and easy ordering process to help users save time.
Digital Wireframes
Moving from paper to digital wireframes made it easy to understand how the redesign could help address user pain points and improve the user experience. Prioritizing useful button locations and visual element placement on the home page was a key part of my strategy.
Low-fidelity prototype
To create a low-fidelity prototype, I connected all of the screens involved in the primary user flow of adding an item to the cart and checking out. At this point, I received feedback on my designs from members of my team about things like the placement of buttons and page organization. I made sure to listen to their feedback, and I implemented several suggestions in places that addressed user pain points.
Usability study: parameters
Usability study: findings
Mockups
Based on the insights from the usability study, I made changes to improve the pickup calendar flow. One of the changes I made was adding the calendar for pickup option. This allowed users more freedom to choose their own convenience dates and times.
High-fidelity prototype
My hi-fi prototype followed the same user flow as the lo-fi prototype, and included the design changes made after the usability study, as well as several changes suggested by members of my team.
Accessibility considerations
Takeaways
— Impact
Our target users shared that the design was intuitive to navigate through, more engaging with the images, and demonstrated a clear visual hierarchy.
— What I learned
I learned that even a small design change can have a huge impact on the user experience. The most important takeaway for me is to always focus on the real needs of the user when coming up with design ideas and solutions.
