Our team had six months to complete the redesign and site migration for a direct to consumer furniture brand. The company was founded in 2017 and had experienced early success from a small, yet devoted, audience. The client explained how the “2.0” version of the brand would consist of a consolidated offering that would enable them to focus on their best-selling products and create a more defined aesthetic. Our goal was to create a site that felt curated and modern, while also addressing the emotional and pragmatic needs that furniture shoppers experience. 

During the early phases of the project, I worked closely with our Brand Strategist to ensure that the brand pillars and value propositions were reflected in the product and content strategies. Once we moved into design, I collaborated with Tech and Design to provide wireframes and oversight to ensure that the new designs were technically feasible and abiding by UX best practices.

Role: UX Design and Strategy

Tools: Sketch, Google Slides

Platform: Shopify

Workflow: Agile (2 Week Sprints)

UX AUDIT AND ANALYTICS REVIEW

After completing stakeholder interviews, I conducted a thorough UX audit and Google Analytics review of the existing site to identify current pain points and opportunities.

Key takeaways include:

Remove Barriers: Consider the various paths to purchase and remove any possible barriers that could occur. Equip users at different points in the purchasing journey with decision-making tools such as seeing furniture in context, saving items for later, robust FAQs, and a seamless checkout process.

Anticipate Expectations: Provide the content and support that users expect to be presented as they move through the site. Consider opportunities to highlight product features and value props, and address common user questions before they have to ask.

Eliminate Redundancy: When possible, be succinct and focused, as to make content more digestible and draw attention to the most important points. Condensing related content will help users stay engaged and make it easier for them to find information that is relevant and useful in achieving their goals.

Competitive analysis

The competitive analysis included over 15 brands and revealed the feature offerings, content types, and best practices that are being implemented in the DTC furniture space.

Key takeaways include:

Brand Identity: Competitors are finding creative opportunities throughout the shopping experience to integrate brand storytelling and unique value propositions. Additionally, many brands lean on a “star” product to drive the overall design aesthetic and site experience. We have a similar opportunity to do this, which will help to inform our product strategy and creative approach.

Tools and Features: Brands are going above and beyond to address potential barriers, such as price (payment plans, price transparency), decision paralysis (saving/favoriting, product education), and logistical concerns (FAQs, return/delivery policies). We can leverage features in order to provide users with confidence and peace of mind in purchasing furniture online.

Path to Purchase: We don’t need to reinvent the wheel to ensure that users have an enjoyable site experience and seamless path to purchase. Following UX best practices will create a website that is intuitive and comprehensible for users both new to and familiar with the brand.

User Insights

Additional industry research provides insight into what motivates users to purchase and what their needs are during that process. These motivations are widely applicable; each of the consumer segments could experience any of these at different times.

The primary users consist of those “Life-Changing, Replacing, and Redecorating.” The full user profiles are detailed below:

By identifying the current situations and complications that exist within the brand, consumer, product, and industry spaces, I am able to define the problem to inform the product and content strategies and drive the project goals.

How can we establish a unique brand identity in a crowded marketplace, mitigate choice paralysis, and remove potential barriers to purchase?

Hero the “star” product, anticipate user needs to create a better shopping experience, and optimize the site to provide a seamless path to purchase.

The recommended features are informed by the SCQA (situation, complication, question, answer) exercise, Shopify platform limitations, and the project’s timeline and resourcing. After aligning on features to move forward with, we then determine when to implement based on importance and level of effort.

The content strategy is based on an outcome-centric approach: DISCOVER, CONSIDER, CONVERT, SHARE. Operative triggers (NAVIGATE, FILTER, SORT, SEARCH) are leveraged to streamline the journey for each of the key behaviors of users on our site.

Finally, the strategy is manifested into wireframes and handed off to design. I worked closely with our Developer to ensure that the proposed designs were feasible from a tech perspective which includes consideration of Shopify requirements, customization needs, and internal resourcing. Along with providing a more efficient site build, this modular design system allows for simplified content management for the client post-handoff, as we know the brand and product offering will continue to grow and evolve after launch.