Maynooth Furniture Website
Chic & price savy furniture e-commerce
Tools: Adobe XD
Brief: Build an online furniture retail website.
Research: Include competitor websites, services, user demographic and accessibility
Persona: A woman in her mid 50's and a recent empty nester. She browses furniture online to redecorate her home to her own tastes while staying within budget.
Feature List: Accessible contact us page, emphasis on deals and clearance, convenient call to actions, large images to showcase products for sale
Deliverables: Hand-drawn wireframes, Low-fidelity prototype, High-fidelity prototype
Persona
This is the persona for the project. Some of the key points I noted was: age, salary, a recent empty-nester, price consciousness, and enjoyment of Pinterest to gather design ideas. I wanted to create a more modern-focused design to suit her dream of updating her house. In addition, emphasizing sales and clearance would help encourage buying pieces. Inspiration from Pinterest large-format images and sleek interface was also accounted for.
Mood Board
My goal was to create a soothing, sleek, and modern aesthetic for the website. This would include colors that are easy on the eyes, clean shapes, and relatively straightforward images and navigation. Since the target Persona is focusing on updating the furniture after it being child/teen centered, modern and mature aesthetics are at the center of my design.
Wireframes
Done traditionally using ink and paper. Various competitor websites were researched. Large sections for product images to showcase details. Furniture is conveniently categorized by room, room decorating articles available, a build-your-own room application, clearance is easily visible, and suggested pieces. All of these are to provide inspiration for the browser. Price and rating are both included in thumbnails for browsing convenience.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
Done digitally in Adobe XD. Refined size and placement of images. Some additional features such as recently viewed, color swatches in category browsing, and inclusion of suggested matching furniture pieces on the product page. were added. In addition, product info on the page is condensed and can optionally be expanded or collapsed to efficiently use page space.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Added in images and anchor links are included. The route is specifically for Home page, living room category, living room seating, product page. The inclusion and variation of images allows for more possibilities such as the room designer app, the maximize your coordination section, ratings, and swatches. Larger images of each page are provided below.
Reflections and Considerations
I am eager to continue learning and growing in this art. The target persona's ease of using the website was constantly in my mind during the designing. User testing and usability reports would help determine pain points. Balancing professional and readable font sizes, using recognizable icons, and category organization are some main elements I imagine would need to be reworked to achieve an ideal experience for the target persona.