Jerry’s Art Supply & Framing Wholesale Club

This eCommerce site redesign was a concept project I worked on during my time in General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive.

Upon performing a heuristics evaluation and C + C analysis, it became clear that Jerry’s site was lacking many of the standard elements and features of a typical eCommerce site, including:

• Search bar

• Product recommendations

• Way to write or read reviews

• Consistent product description pages

I began looking into what current customers of Jerry’s might find useful in an online store. Based on Google reviews, the main draw of Jerry’s seemed to be the potential for savings via deals and membership. However, the site’s FAQ section stated that promos and coupons weren’t being accepted for online purchases at the time. (For context, this was in the midst of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.) With sales shifting from in-person to online over the previous months, not accepting promos for online purchases seemed detrimental to Jerry’s business.

Armed with this information, I developed a proto-persona:

I created a journey map for Gail. I imagined Gail realizing she was running low on pastels. She had a coupon for Jerry’s, but knew that her kids would scold her if she went to shop in-person during the pandemic (being 65, she was at higher risk of becoming infected). So she logged into her account on the website and navigated to the pastels. After adding them to her cart and proceeding to checkout, she looked for a place to type in her coupon code but was disappointed to realize there actually wasn’t one. She ultimately decided to abandon her cart, because she began to feel guilty about paying full price for art supplies during a pandemic.

Primary User Persona

Amy Johnson | Executive Assistant | Age 37 | Single

Amy takes lots of art classes but considers herself a hobbyist. She loves walking around art stores and being able to browse leisurely while looking at supplies up-close and trying out different tools. She frequently leans on the expertise of employees to help inform her choices. It’s important to her during this time that she supports local businesses like Jerry’s, but she has a pre-existing health condition that has been preventing her from shopping in-person.

Amy needs a way to buy art supplies online that allows her to support her local store while feeling confident in the products she chooses.

How might I instill the feeling of confidence Amy has shopping in person when she shops online?

Things I kept in mind while brainstorming solutions for Amy*:

• reviews

• multiple images of a product

• descriptive product information

• professional advice and recommendations (AKA the store’s employees)

*Informed by data from user interviews

Goal:

• Users will be able to confidently make a purchase in under 2 minutes.

Logistics:

• Conducted via video call

• Unmoderated

Number of Participants:

• 5

User Scenario:

• This is an eCommerce website for an art supply store. You want to place an order for pencils, and feel confident that you got the best quality pencils possible.

Task:

• Click through the prototype and walk me through the steps you’d take to order the best quality pencils possible.

Metrics:

Quantitative: Users will be able to complete the task in under 2 minutes.

Qualitative: Users will feel confident that they got the best quality pencils possible.

Usability testers seemed perplexed by the over-complicated navigation labels, so in my first iteration I simplified them:

The stars I initially used to indicate product ratings were also confusing to users during testing, so these changed as well:

Key Takeaways:

• When it comes to design, simplify, simplify, simplify! (See: navigation iteration)

• Use visual elements that users are already familiar with. (See: rating stars iteration)

Research Insights:

• I was initially expecting affordability to be users’ main concern, but was surprised to learn that confidence was the real issue that needed to be addressed during this project.

• After confidence, inspiration was the recurring theme throughout user interviews. Users get a lot of inspirational value from leisurely browsing, particularly in-store.

Challenges:

• Determining then finding the right type of users can be challenging. A way to alleviate the stress of this challenge was to mentally categorize users by “ideal” (online art supply shopper), “second-tier” (in-store art supply shopper), and “sufficient” (someone who shops online or in-store).

Favorite Step in the Design Process:

• Digital wireframing! Nothing like putting on some music and getting into that flow state.

Potential Next Steps:

• Page of case studies for users to take inspiration from

• Featured projects section highlighting local artists using tools and supplies sold at Jerry’s