Feeling Blue
Designing an e-commerce webshop for ceramic shop Blue Story
The second assignment of the Ironhack Bootcamp, where I am an ui/ux -student since october 2023, was; follow an end-to-end design process to create a working high-fidelity prototype of an e-commerce website with desktop priority and one responsive screen together within 9 days! The project also included developing a branding strategy or rebranding for the selected shop. My team members were Jeroen Verspuij, Jermaine Aroma, and Kasia Luksza.
In the town where I live, there is a shop named, Blue Story that is specialized in selling high-quality ceramics from Poland. The ceramics are of excellent quality and are somewhat expensive, featuring all a blue and white pattern. The shop has a website but it doesn’t quite match the quality of the store and its ceramic products. We found this to be a perfect fit for the assignment: Can we design an e-commerce webshop for Blue Story?
We commenced the project by conducting an interview with one of the stakeholders. One of the things he said: “Our emphasis lies in a niche market, distinct from widespread retailers like Ikea, where one can find commonplace pottery. Our clients, older than 35 then up 70–80, are discerning and specific in their tastes — you love it (90%), or you hate it. For those who appreciate it, some people get even addicted to it. Some enthusiasts collect an extensive array, turning their homes into veritable showcases of pottery. I would like to attract also more younger people.”
In addition to the stakeholder interview, we conducted secondary research that highlighted the potential advantages for local businesses in establishing an online presence. However, the challenge is evident as many local businesses encounter difficulties gaining traction in the online sphere. Nevertheless, it’s essential to recognize that both offline and online aspects can complement each other, contributing to a strengthened overall presence.
In summary, we did a competitive analysis aims to provide an overview of the market, identifying areas for improvement, potential opportunities, and strategies to outperform competitors.
Competitor Analysis key learnings: Notifying customers about product availability and giving warnings for low stock levels, prevents disappointment, and is improoving the customer experience.
Competitor Analysis Opportunities: Add a ‘new’ page in webshop to show latest products.
With this in mind we did 4 user interviews, and one of our main finding was that people often already have enough ceramics, but if they see something they really like the buy it, this is different from other kitchen attributes. So inspiration is important to sell new ceramics. The insights we narrowed down in a Affinity Diagram. The findings of the Affinity Diagram formed the basis for our persona.
Meet Meena, a 35-year-old expat living in the South of The Netherlands, originally from India. She’s on a mission to find unique, handcrafted ceramics that resonate with her.
However, with no local ceramics shops, she’s reliant on navigating the web.
Her goal is simple: It’s to discover ceramics that reflect her style and values. Her story fuels our mission to design a diverse, user-friendly, and enchanting online ceramics shop.
After this we have defined our Problem Statement:
We used crazy 8’s brainstorming to think out of the box. By using the MoScoW method we defined the Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves and Won’t-haves. In the ‘Lo-fi Design’ stage, our goal was to lay the foundation for the website’s layout, aligning it with our users’ needs. We created wireframes and sketches of the user interface.
These form the basis for our more detailed designs in the mid-fi and hi-fi stages. We conducted mid-fi testing with three users, presenting two versions of the homepage. During testing, we had users share their screens and vocalize their thoughts. Version A was preferred for its ‘New Arrivals’ section and textual content, while version B stood out with Category previews, Instagram integration, and rich imagery.
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The feedback was insightful. Users appreciated the clean and simple design but faced challenges, particularly due to the absence of real product images. Our goal was to find the right balance between text and images, incorporating all the features our users loved.
After creating the mid-fi, we’re now advancing to high-fi and defining colour, typeface and pictures.
In terms of responsive design, our main emphasis was on the Homepage. Adapting the desktop experience for tablet and mobile users, who primarily interact with their hands, posed a challenging yet exciting experience.
Creating the webshop was fun. There are so many details you have to think of! Together with the team, we managed under a lot of pressure. And Kasia even gave me extra Figma instructions.
Reflecting on the project
I’ve gained valuable insights: Due to time constraints, there was no time to do user testing in the high-fi stage. What if we had done that? The results of user testing may have made us more aligned, where to put focus on at the end.
Photography, a crucial element, was mainly generated with AI due to the limited visual assets from the stakeholder’s existing website. For me, they are a bit too perfect. But maybe it was the best we could do?
The feelings from our website are overall still very ‘blue,’ and we didn’t elevate it enough, maybe to a more balanced view. Is the Styleboard that was created enough used as a starting point for ‘style’ when creating the high-fi? Or were we not aligned over the chosen style?
The initial goal was to attract a younger audience, but the overall impression doesn’t convey youthfulness, and we decided to make our persona, in the end, 7 years older. What could have been done differently? Perhaps a deeper exploration of what resonates with a younger audience — immersing more in their visual language. The website currently doesn’t align with the intended youthful vibe. Or was the wish from our stakeholder to attract also younger people a desire that can be fulfilled because the nature of this ceramic is not something the youth will love ever?
You see, I still have a lot of questions. I will take some time, and maybe after the course, I can reflect and give you my answers.
Thank you for reading, and I would love to hear your feedback about this project.
Kind regards, Lisanne
