Outcomes

• During contexual inquiry, came upon a clear 'LIGHTBULB MOMENT' - Shindigz revealed itself as a player with the most unique themes, and 100s of them. The web brand offering was based off of that, and thus the design of the navigation and browsability of the products.

• Clear navigation model to search by theme, product or occasion

• Interactions meeting best-practice and usability standards

• Smart filters to fine tune options based on user needs

• Showcase Shindigz's best-in-class party themes and make them easily navigable and exciting, and not overwhelming

UX PROCESS & artifacts

THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

(Competitive Analysis, Contextual Inquiry, Heuristic Evaluation)

• It terms of types of feature offering it revealed a clear market leader—Oriental Trading. I learnt the following through further evaluation of its Heuristics:

  • Its crystal clear navigation was really easy to use and browse products

  • The smart filters available allowed the user to narrow options and fine tune among the plethora of options

• Contextual Inquiry with users on Shindigz revealed that it stood our as a player with the most unique themes, and 100s of them. This was a clear strength for them. (The A-ha light-bulb moment)

• Its important to note here that, Shindigz has lots of features ‘available’, but they have very weak usability or are lacking content in them. A feature’s mere existence does not reflect its absolute success, since that would mislead the user and lead to poor usability and engagement.

User research

(User Interviews and Affinity Mapping)

• Browsing and discovering products to see if it first fits their needs was important to people

• The way the products and options were displayed should allow and fuel users creativity

• Navigation and site experience to be easy and enjoyable, not confusing and painful

KEY PERSONA – CREATIVE CAITLIN

(Persona Development)

PROBLEM statement

As a person who likes to get creative with my parties (user role)

I want a way to have flexibility in how I discover and decide my party supplies without feeling creatively stifled (task),

So that I can get excited and feel good about my upcoming party (goal)

storyboard

card sorting - to showcase themes effectively

• Very satisfying and enlightening indeed

• Clear buckets and sub-buckets emanated, although different users applied different ‘labels’ to certain categories

SKETCHES & DESIGN DIRECTIONS

(Home Page Designs)

Always beneficial to explore and test possible design solutions, and then continuing to iterate from testing

TESTING WITH USERS

(Usability Testing)

PAPER PROTOTYPES - ITERATION 1 (BASED ON USABILITY findings)

(Lo-fidelity & Medium-fidelity Wireframes)

KEY LEARNINGS

Filters

• Further test the filters clusters and order for all pages

• Explore the addition of ‘Events and Occasions’ to the the filter

• system as well

• The collapsed faceted navigation should be investigated and tested

• Investigate best practices and other sites who offer is successfully

Breadcrumbing

• Test the bread-crumbing pattern currently applied

NEXT STEPS

• Undertake Usablity Testing based on most recent learnings

• Explore a mechanism to create content for ‘Reviews & Ratings’ by users by offering ‘rewards’ through the loyalty rewards program

• Ideate, sketch and test the site experience of ‘creating your own unique them’ for users

Role

UX Design Lead / UX Researcher

TIMEFRAME

2 Week Design Sprint at General Assembly

UX Methodologies

Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Contextual Inquiry, Usability Heuristics, Affinity Mapping, Information Architecture, Business and Brand Goal Evaluation, Persona Development, Storyboard, Sketching, Card Sorting, Design Direction Ideation, Paper Prototyping, Usability Testing, Design Iterating, Wireframing, Prototyping.