Introduction
About Project
Scented Soy is a home based candle company located in Charlotte, North Carolina. At Scented Soy, we believe in creating a wonderful, clean and fragrant candle that’s affordable. We use natural soy wax, phthalate-free fragrance oils. Scented Soy does not include paraffin wax, phthalate, or any ingredients found on prop 65 list. This means no harmful, toxic chemicals are being released in your home.
Challenges
The challenges for this project is that it adresses a specific user type, a big majority of the user are women, it could be men that want to offer the product as a gift but not for them. The target user for this kind of product is not men in this case but they can buy the product.
The time line was very short that was another challenge to deal wi
Project Goal
The project goal is to provide the users a seamless experience when they visit the website and make it easy for users to buy candles for their own needs or as a gift.
Target User
The target user of this website is mainly women and few men that are interested in making gifts for any ocassion. We see a huge increase in demand by men as well for some special fragrance like whisky-cognac.
My Role
My role is to complete the user experience and interface design for this project. I performed user research, prototyping, and visual design.
USER-CENTERED DESIGN PROCESS
USER-CENTERED DESIGN PROCESS
Understanding the user
Challenges
The challenges for this project is that it adresses a specific user type, a big majority of the user are women, it could be men that want to offer the product as a gift but not for them. The target user for this kind of product is not men in this case but they can buy the product.
The time line was very short that was another challenge to deal wi
Understanding the user
User Research
We conducted user research and received feedback from our users that we included in our personas. For example Jame an architect wants to buy candles for him or his customers because he loves to set up a cosy place in all his work and for his home. The research revealed that when you buy candles from the net you can’t smell it so we have to include a strong description of the product in the homepage or in the product description. Jame would like to see a good description that describes best the product he sees on the webpage.
Research Goal
I created a research plan and interview guide which provides insights on buyer behavior and attitudes towards online flower orders. Learning from the target audience and the services they use for floral delivery helped me understand their needs. What the consumer wanted to experience and the features they think are necessary to order flowers was the primary thing I wanted to know. Determining the opportunities, needs, pain points, and all other findings will be utilized to help shape the direction taken as I develop the app.
Research Summary
I started with mind mapping to analysis the brief and also did some research to understand the candle business industry. I tried to define some user needs, user goals, constraints and some other assumptions. This mind mapping helped me a lot for structuring, analyzing the related information and recalling and generating the design ideas.
Competitive Analysis
I think competitive analysis helps us to understand the rights and wrongs of our product or service. Mainly I use competitive analysis to make decisions based on knowledge of what is now working well for the users, rather than based on extreme guesses or intuition. It also helps to identify risks in the product or service and use those insights to add value while designing.
Understanding the user
User Research
We conducted user research and received feedback from our users that we included in our personas. For example Jame an architect wants to buy candles for him or his customers because he loves to set up a cosy place in all his work and for his home. The research revealed that when you buy candles from the net you can’t smell it so we have to include a strong description of the product in the homepage or in the product description. Jame would like to see a good description that describes best the product he sees on the webpage.
Research Goal
I created a research plan and interview guide which provides insights on buyer behavior and attitudes towards online flower orders. Learning from the target audience and the services they use for floral delivery helped me understand their needs. What the consumer wanted to experience and the features they think are necessary to order flowers was the primary thing I wanted to know. Determining the opportunities, needs,
pain points, and all other findings will be utilized to help shape the direction taken as I develop the app.
Research Summary
I started with mind mapping to analysis the brief and also did some research to understand the candle business industry. I tried to define some user needs, user goals, constraints and some other assumptions. This mind mapping helped me a lot for structuring, analyzing the related information and recalling and generating the design ideas.
Competitive Analysis
I think competitive analysis helps us to understand the rights and wrongs of our product or service. Mainly I use competitive analysis to make decisions based on knowledge of what is now working well for the users, rather than based on extreme guesses or intuition. It also helps to identify risks in the product or service and use those insights to add value while designing.
The Goal
- A website that represents their values (trust, reliability, and uniqueness).
- That showcases their best works to visitors.
- Contains all information needed for the potential clients.
- Helps increase the sales leads.
- Should contain scroll jacking in all pages.
- A responsive website.
Persona
Jame is an Architect in California who needs to buy candles for himself or for his clients because He needs to set up nice places for his clients and he loves to put candles everywhere.Pain Points
Start The Design
Crazy 8s
This crazy 8 is showing the design thinking process in which I had to think in different kind of layout for our homepage and product pages for the website.
I had to think of a layout adapted to desktop screens and mobile screens.
Moving from paper to digital wireframes made it easy to understand how the redesign could help address user pain points and improve the user experience.Digital Wireframes
Competitive Analysis
Here is a competitive map to better understand the current CRM market. The tool is the perfect mix between specificity on the entertainment sector and technical expertise.
Usability Testing
The biggest takeaway form the usability study is that we had to improve the navigation and the user flow some links were missing. It was updated in the second iteration.
I came to these conclusions based on the the KPI’s I used here in this case it was the completion rate for this specific user flow. The order page, confirmation and checkout page.
Study type: unmoderated usability study for the website.
Location: remote usability study
Participants: 5 participants each completing the usability study
Length: each session duration is 5-10 minutes based on a list of prompts
Results: users had issues with the user flow, some users wanted to go back to thehomepage directly from the header and the navigation bar, I had to link home withthe homepage in the header. The user liked the
navigation and the use of the website,the users liked the color palette.
High-fidelity designs
Mockups
Website Link:
Conclusion
This project was interesting because the user is well defined but can vary depending on the product needs it could be for a personal use or for a gift, meaning that the usage is not the same depending on who is the end user.
In this challenging period we have to be flexible in termes of tools because testing was made in distance we have to be clear on the instructions for the usability study.
This version is only the first version until the next iteration and the next user feedback. This user flow was tested and works well. It has to be refined to be improved. The next step is to design another user flow and iterate on the product. It could be also to refine the existing user flow to improve it.
