Jerry’s Art Supplies
Objective
A project centered around
e-commerce Desktop Design | I was tasked to redesign Jerry’s Art Supplies online presence to make it easier for customers to use.
My Role
Research
Design
Prototyping
Testing
Tools
Sketch
InVision
Zoom
Team
Solo
Duration
2 week sprint
Overview
For all you artist or even the less artistic, have you ever tried going online to buy something and become totally overwhelmed? Maybe theres too much text or difficult checkout process or even both?
When searching for art supplies things can be pretty daunting as it is, especially if you’re not familiar with art supplies. Add a website in the mix and you might be ready to give up on your creative endeavors. Jerry’s art supply and framing gave access to supplies to artist, students, and the curious residing in the Greensboro area.
As 2020 came around the corner so did COVID-19. During the pandemic there was a surge of online shopping and Jerry’s had a hard time keeping up with sales. They needed to make a change to their online interface to keep their existing loyal customer base and bring in new ones as well.
Research
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
I started by looking at other websites that had a multitude of products. I looked at indirect competitors like Lowes, Wayfair and Apple as well as direct competitors like Hobby Lobby and Michales. I found that they each had hero images to draw the user to products. They had a decent use of white space and felt secure.
Card Sorting
I ended up doing a hybrid card sort with the existing categories Jerry’s offered. We found that people didn’t use the vast amount of very particular categories Jerry’s used on their sight. I knew from this point I needed to cut back what they had and do more broad categories with maybe some advanced filtering options.
Interviews
I talked to 3 people between the ages of 25-55 who shopped online in the last week on a desktop and learned about their expierence.
1.
“I loved that my credit card info was stored when I logged in.”
-David
2.
“Everything was easy to find under simple but detailed categories.”
-Debbie
3.
“I knew what I wanted before I went on the sight so I searched for it.”
-Nolan
Findings
From my user interviews I found 6 main categories by doing an affinity map with sticky notes to find the common themes between the interviewees. From here I was able to craft a persona who will help guide me through the process of the design phase.
“I want clearer language.”
“I need to trust the sight in order to return.”
“I enjoy an easy checkout process”
“I look for good deals and promos”
“I know what I want so I like to search for it.”
“I want better customer service on the sight".”
Persona
Lana George
65 years old
Retired artist and art teacher
Primary caretaker of her grandchildren
Lana is a retired artist and art teacher, she has a passion to teach and recently became the primary care taker of her granddaughters. Lana wants to pass on her creative skills to her granddaughters. Since the pandemic Lana doesn't want to shop in stores in fear she could be at risk so she's sets out to find a website that is trusting, has good deals and is quick and easy to use.
“How might we make an online shopping experience that is easy to use with good deals, fast checkout and great customer service?”
Design
Sketching
I had to flesh out a lot of the ideas I had running through my head to be sure I was meeting the user needs I found in my research for the persona I created. I sketched many different landing page interfaces using the “crazy 8” method to get out all the bad and good ideas. From here I was able to mesh them together and start on my prototyping.
“Bad” Ideas
“Good” Ideas
Wireframes
1.
For the home page I made the search bar the first thing you come too. I removed a lot of the unnecessary categories from the main page and put them within the “more” categories. I added a large banner for promo deals and quick access popular categories. I also wold love for Jerry’s to incorporate a Blog to draw in old customers and new. I think by incorporating this it will make the sight feel more trustworthy and community focused. On top of that I added a help feature that follows you on the footer of every page you visit just in case you want to chat with someone about a product or need help!
2.
Within the search pages I wanted to have make sure the top navigation stays with you. I wanted the category name to stand out as well as offer breadcrumbs to easily navigate back to previous pages. I added an advanced filter and sort options similar to Wayfair. I made the images larger for easier viewing as well as a review and favorite feature.
3.
Once you’re on the product page I wanted to make it clear which product you’re actually on. I also needed to make it clear when you increased an item quantity it wasn’t adding it to the cart. I brought over the favorite and review features here as well. I added the related items right underneath for a clear way to view and see other like items.
Next Steps
When users reach department page for “Paints” I will make item categories more defined to give the user a faster way to view their options on one page.
I will have a pop up when you add something to your cart that asks if you want to go ahead and “checkout” or not or if you want to continue to shop have a “continue shopping” button.
I will show that when a user increases quantity from the product description page the price will increase with the number of items.
Key Takeaways
The biggest thing that I learned from this project was that there are many smaller businesses without proper e-commerce who are suffering from the pressures of COVID-19 and limiting customer contact. Good design should be accessible and with one more designer in the world thats a lot less poorly designed websites.
Insights
One thing that I noticed that everyone mentioned was that they obviously wanted to trust the sight before they made a purchase or would return. I realize that it sounds like common sense but I guess I didn’t realize how big of an importance of how the sight felt was to people.
Challenges
This was our first website design. Whats difficult about websites is that theres so much more real-estate to fill. I’m someone who usually leans more minimal and simple but with a website I kinda have to get out of my head a bit and really allow myself to utilize the space well.
Favorite Step
For this project I really enjoyed finding what other sights did well and bringing that into Jerry’s. There wasn’t too big of a challenge to make the existing sight better but it was fun going above that and finding what other places did well or even not so well.