Website redesign

Website Before Changes

Competition & Research

To focus on what needed to change, I began the customer research and research on the competition. Working with the owner, I started the competitor research by asking about who they consider a competitor in their market and also their style inspirations. The client identified the following companies as both style guides and also competitors: Kiya Cosmetics, Afrocenchix, Only Curls, Flora Curl and Jim and Henry. With this information, I began looking at these different websites to see what they were doing successfully, what they did well and how these features could be reflected on the VP Royals website.

The highlights taken from analysing the competitor websites:

-Kiya Cosmetics and Only Curls website start with a sign up call to action for customers to receive a discount

-Kiya, Afrocenchix, have a clear banner slider with a hero image of the product – no text clash

-Bestsellers section to highlighted all the different products with customer ratings

-A section with what parts of the bodies their products should be used on

-Kiya have their customer review above the footer

-Kiya and Only Curls have Chatbots

-All showcase where they’ve been featured

-Afrocenchix keeping to 7 menu options (including the profile, cart and search icons)

– Kiya offered a filter section for products

The websites selected for the had similar features in style, clear menu layouts and CTA’s to engage users to click. These websites have good UI and also follow good UX e-commerce conventions. The simplicity of the designs and layout allows the focus to be on the products instead of figuring out how to navigate through the website. These key elements have been listed as “crucial factors” by bigcommerce.co.uk.

This was an issue for VP Royals, as the website lacked clear organisation on the menu to allow users to purchase products. The several options could lead to confusing and users exiting the website.

This is what Nielsen’s Norman Group identifies as UX principals for e-commerce product pages.

Must-Have

At an absolute minimum, product pages must have these core components.

Descriptive product name

Recognizable image(s)

Enlarged view of the image(s)

Price, including any additional product-specific charges

Clear product options, such as colour and size, and a way to select them

Product availability

Clearway to add an item to the cart, and clear feedback when it has been added

Concise and informative product description

Nice to Have

Shoppers generally expect and appreciate these elements on product pages, but not all sites and apps need each of these.

Customer or expert ratings or reviews, sortable or filterable by rating

Additional product images (rotated or detailed views, animated images of the product in use)

Product videos

Zoom or pan functionality on product images

Related product recommendations

Wishlist or registry tools

Fancy Features

These may be worthwhile for some products, but only if they are flawlessly executed with high usability and utility for the user.

Virtual try-on (for example, via photo upload or augmented reality)

Photo or video reviews from customers

Metadata and advanced filtering in reviews

Recurring- or subscription-purchase options

Product customization tools

360° photos

Step-by-step how-to videos or animations

Survey Questions

1, What’s your sex/gender?

2. How old are you?

3. How do you usually buy hair and skincare products?

4. How often do you purchase hair or skin products?

5. Have you heard or used any of these companies?

6. Would you recommend any of these companies or another company that sells hair and/or skincare?

7. How important is using natural products on your hair and skin to you?

8. How likely are you to buy natural hair and/or skin products?

9. Would you book hair services through a website that sells hair products? E.g. booking a wash and go or restorative treatment

10. When buying hair and/or skincare products, what do you look for?

Wireframing

The new focus of the website is the menu organsation, booking hair services and enhance the users journey from start to checkout. The change in the main menu to help users make a decision quicker by directing them (Fitt’s Law). Although several pages have been created, only 6 options feature in the menu to help users make a decision on the website (Miller’s Law and Hick’s Law).

The design focus is to align the style more similar to the competitor websites (Jakob’s Law) and more of a focus on driving sales. Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable (Aesthetic Usability Effect).

Services Page

The Design

After wire-framing and researching, I was in a position to start designing and turn around the design for the website.

List of changes:

Organised menu – reducing the menu to 7 options (including the icos) – Miller’s Law

• • Change hero image to the slideshow to make the text easier to read

  • Using similar shades for the homepage

  • Including a chatbot

  • “Natural” section would be changed to videos to showcase the products

  • Balanced sales items

  • Focus on hair services

  • Product filter added to the shop

  • Colour contrast

Pulling Colors From Existing Brand & Identity