UX Researcher / Designer / Marketer
Portfolio
Sancta
Overview
As an earlier project, I researched and designed to improve e-commerce website for Sancta, a home goods store, determined to strengthen their online presence to boost sales and broaden their reach to other consumers and artisans that were unable to shop at the conventional brick-and-mortar store.
Skills
Survey
Card Sorting
Information Architecture
Competitive Analysis
Usability Testing
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Software
Adobe XD
Sketch
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Introduction
"Turn your home into your sanctuary."
Sancta is a popular local storefront known for their longstanding record of amazing customer service, reasonable prices, and their ability to curate special collections of artisan's works and products to sell in their store. By doing so, they are able to support their local artists and give back to their community.
Because of the difference their contributions and support made in their communities, they've decided to branch out their store into the biggest market in the world-- the internet.
Challenge
To date, all sales are made through patronage at the store's physical location. They can only help artists locally because their current website was not a focus in the business. Sancta is willing to overhaul their current digital solution to favor something more effective at increasing online sales. Some of their initial must-haves include:
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Ability to showcase popular products
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Multiple ways of locating products
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Provide an efficient way to purchase multiple products
Outcome
The project's result is an excellent first step in setting up the foundation for an e-commerce website that would successfully achieve Sancta's goal of updating the business model to be less dependent on local sales. The website would prove to be a valuable asset to the business. It would help further Sancta's goal of providing excellent customer service and support for local artists and artisans.
Discovery & Research
Survey & Affinity Mapping
I administered a survey to 7 people to get an idea of what kind of pain points they encounter when shopping for home goods online, where they tend to shop and why, and what their experiences are missing when it comes to shopping for these products with confidence.
Card Sorting
I gathered a wide variety of products to get an idea of the type of products Sancta would carry. The purpose of this exercise was to familiarize myself with the store's items and, in turn, would be used in the beginning stages of my research. I then had an open card sort with the different types of items that Sancta would sell to help with the overall Information Architecture. I recruited 7 participants who often shop for their homes to sort the things in groups that felt made the most sense.
Click images to enlarge
Synthesis
Personas
After collecting data that I learned from potential users, I was able to create two personas. One user, who would be a browsing customer, and another user, who would be using the B2B component of Sancta's online storefront to collaborate and sell their products through Sancta.
With the research organized and the two Personas solidified, I finalized a Problem and Solution Statement for the project.
Problem
Sancta needs a more efficient e-commerce website because they want to grow sales for the business and continue to support more artisans.
Solution
By redesigning Sancta's website to have simple, intuitive navigation, a focused inventory display, and a simple checkout system, we will make purchasing home goods online a delightful experience.
Ideation
With the information I gathered during the Open Card Sort, I put together a navigation scheme that would make the most sense for Sancta's target user. Next, I worked on the happy path for the User Flow for both the consumer and the user that would like to collaborate using the artisan submission form.
I then began ideating on paper what kind of visual tools I'd use and the information required for the submission fotrm so that it's simple and easy to manage.
Design
Then came the barebones of the website's layout in low fidelity form, wireframing the initial landing page, a product page, a product card, and the submission form.
And I ideated until it turned into this:
Next Steps
The website is still a work in progress, but here are some next steps to continue building and improving Sancta’s e-commerce experience.
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Conduct usability tests to measure the efficiency of the Information Architecture of the site.
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Creating a user profile section that holds favorites, past orders, common shipping addresses and payments.
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Design a "Featured Artisan" section to showcase an artist's story and an opportunity to share their passions.