Case Study - Apr 2021
Experience Revamp on Uniqlo Website
Scope
Duration
Company
:Website
:2 Weeks
:Uniqlo
THE CHALLENGE
With the recent COVID-19 crisis, self-imposed social distancing to avoid contagion, together with the strict confinement measures implemented has led to a surge in e-commerce and accelerated digital transformation.
Many retailers have been forced to carefully rethink their strategy in light of COVID-19. In this project, we were given a task to challenge the information architecture design decision of an E-Commerce site of our choice. Uniqlo's my pick as it is one of my favourites to-go stores.
MY ROLE
I was the sole individual responsible for the User Experience from discovery, user research, design to testing.
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS #1
PROBLEM
COMPLICATED SIZE GUIDE
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Users were confused and overwhelmed with a load of information provided under the size guide.
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Some users were frustrated, did not bother to look at it and based merely on their guestimates based on their previous shopping experiences.
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Some users went straight to look for the clothing measurement segment to find out their size.
HOW MIGHT WE
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
How might we redesign a better and easier experience for users to help them make better decisions in purchasing the right size?
SOLUTION
SCANNABLE SIZE GUIDE
Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics as a rule of thumb:
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Aesthetic and minimalist design.
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Recognition rather than recall.
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Maintain consistency and standard.
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Thanks to our declining attention span, the best way to achieve immediate user engagement is by keeping the design simple with minimal interface interference. I decided to stick to the existing style guide since the project goal is not to redesign the UI aspect of the web.
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A visual chart with outfits and their measurements create an effortless customer experience, which not only leaves less room for the confusion but also provide direct pertinent information needed in helping users have a good gauge on which outfit fit them correctly.
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After several rounds of user testing to improve on the design concept and its usability, it has resulted in improvements in task performance experience among users (SEQ).
GOAL
CREATE A DELIGHTFUL CONSUMER EXPERIENCE
Creating a design that assists users in finding the right fit easily, it’ll allow users to make the right purchase decisions and increase buyers confidence thus encourage repeat purchases.
EXISTING:
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PROPOSED:
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS #2
EXISTING:
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PROPOSED:
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PROBLEM
MEGA MENU OVERLOAD
Users were overwhelmed with a load of product lists on the mega menu, which makes it difficult for them to find the area of interest quickly.
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Users were confused with some of the labellings, for eg: "Loungewear".
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I decided to conduct an open and hybrid card sort to get a sense of how users categorised clothing, shoes, and accessories and what is the best way to sort them.
HOW MIGHT WE
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
How might we redesign a better navigation experience for users to help them locate their area of interest quickly?
SOLUTION
VISUAL MENU
Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics as a rule of thumb:
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Match between the system and the real world.
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Recognition rather than recall.
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Maintain consistency and standard.
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The design concept was built based on my card sort results, sitemap as well as inspirations from the competitive analysis.
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I felt that the visual menu is naturally more engaging and interesting for users. Within a quick glance, it is sufficient to help form associations for users on what product Uniqlo has got to offer.
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A dropdown menu on each category for quicker access into the area of interest.
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Multiple rounds of user testing to signify improvements in SEQ scores.
GOAL
STRENGTHENING PRODUCT DISCOVERY AND NAVIGATION ON THE WEB
To create a design that not only reduces cognitive load but also help highlight the products offered in Uniqlo. The purpose is to help reduce confusion and speed navigation thus promote users retention rate.
THE PROCESS
UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS:
WHAT DIFFERENTIATES UNIQLO FROM THE REST
OF IT'S COMPETITORS?
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Uniqlo adopted a vertical integration strategy whereby Uniqlo manages all its operations in-house, right from product planning, and design, to manufacturing and distribution facilities, ensuring that they are always aware of the customers’ needs and purchases.
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This enables Uniqlo to replenish the stock in a matter of days and improve products within weeks. Purchasing fabric in bulk helps the company negotiate the price with suppliers and provide affordable clothing options to customers.
Uniqlo's Unique Selling Point:
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Quality > Quantity.
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A Technology Company created innovative fabrics like Airism, UV Protection.
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Brand Collaboration with brands like Disney, Japanese Manga, and even top leading designers.
Company's Vision:
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Redefine customer experiences through a robust omnichannel strategy and become the leading brand in every country that the brand operates.
IDENTIFY GAPS, CREATE OPPORTUNITIES
In order to have a scope to focus on, I began by looking up a good amount of unsolicited user feedback on Uniqlo's web properties, which I believe is a place where I could find out what's truly top of mind for the customers in their own words.
Common Finding: Wrong size returns due to inaccurate and confusing size and fit guide.
UNDERSTANDING USERS
I believe in solving the root of the problem rather than its symptoms and thus, I want to understand "why the wrong size returns despite detailed size guide were provided?".
I ran tests by giving a group of users a specific task to perform to understand how would they go about using the site, and what were their pain points while using it. Along with it, I also interviewed users to find out their common shopping behaviours. This helps me keep my design decisions user friendly.
After the completion of the task, SEQ was given to rate. This serves as a quick qualitative gauge for me to see if there is any improvement in comparison between the existing vs the redesigned.
Based on the insights I gathered, I realised there were numerous pain points expressed by users. I resorted to using a prioritization matrix to help me decide on solving potential problems that will lead to a higher possible impact with minimal effort for the business.
IDEATION, PROTOTYPING
To ensure that my design concept will provide for a more seamless user experience, I came out with a persona, customer journey, and user flow to help me focus on designing for my target users and their needs as well as visualising how users will interact with the pages differently on the redesigned web.
With the clear roadmap with where I wanted to go, I began to brainstorm for rough ideas just to see some possibilities. I settled on some features that I wanted to include in my redesign.
TESTING
In total I went through 2 iterations on both mid and high fidelity prototypes, each time testing with 5 new users and making changes based on feedback received.
Apart from the qualitative datas that I have gathered from my usability testing with users, I decided to also include the quantitative data (SEQ Metrics) to measure the different aspects of usability and also serves as benchmarks to track changes in usability.
Users were asked to rate the task on how easy or difficult it was after each phase of usability testing.
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REFLECTIONS
I FOUND MYSELF CONSTANTLY PONDERING...
As I went on with my design, there were a couple of questions due to the constraints of a case study led me to question; "What about the design system being implemented? What about the market research results and data? Being an international e-commerce platform; what about the cross-cultural research on consumer trends and behaviour? "What about the stakeholders' research on their constraints and needs?" To answer my own queries, I began reading and learning more about it. These led me to understand that coming out with an idea is easy, but a good product formula is a formula that is able to harmonize the needs in different aspects.