Overview
This project was the second assignment of the Google UX Design course. The task was to design a responsive website of shopping experience for an art studio, where users can purchase painting courses and art supplies. The target audience for the website are adults who are interested in learning to paint, as well as parents who want to purchase painting courses for their children.
Problem Statement
Websites that sell courses often have cluttered designs, confusing registration and checkout processes, as well as disconnect between the offline and online experiences. It is important to create a user-focused shopping experience that improves customers satisfaction and encourages repeat visits and purchases.
Goals
1. To create a user-friendly way for people to purchase painting courses and art supplies from the art studio.
To increase acessibility and visibility of the art studio offerings, while also making it easier for potential customers to purchase products.
Research
In the research phase, i conducted user interviews, which i then turned into empathy maps. This helped me to understand user needs. My empathy map showed that user would visit an art studio website in order to navigate through courses and other related products intuitively, while seeing clear description of each product, such as images, shipping and delivery information, customer reviews. User also would want to have a clear checkout process and further confirmation about registering for a course so they can feel confident that they took their place in the course program and can get ready to start.
Research helped me to identify following pain points:
Confusing navigation: If the navigation on the website is unclear, users may become frustrated and have difficulty finding the products they are looking for.
Lack of reviews: Without access to other customers reviews, users may have trouble making well informed purchases or feel less confident about their choice.
Insufficient product information: If course description is not detailed enough, user may have difficulty understanding what chosen course includes, which can lead to disappointment.
Hidden or unexpected costs: If users are not aware of the pricing before checkout, they may feel misled and have lack of trust in the website, thus purchase abandonment.
Lack of communication: If users are not notified promptly after completing registration for a course, they may feel unsure whether registration was successful and frustrated by the lack of communication from the website.
Design Process
Based on research findings, i created user personas and user journey maps that represent the target users.
Next step was creating a site map of the website. This sitemap, based on user pain points, includes four main sections: the course page, where users can find information about the available art courses; the art supplies page, where users can browse art supplies; the cart page, where users can view and manage selected for purchase products; and the about page that represents the art studio itself.
Digital wireframes:
To gather insights and feedback on digital wireframes, i conducted usability study and these were the findings:
Cart: during checkout users had two different types of products in cart- course and art supply. Since those two products require entering different contact and shipping information, users were confused by unclear contact and shipping form.
Navigation: users were lost between website pages, because there was no indication of where they are on the website.
Discovery/Engagement: while discovering a product, users had no option to filter them; also, users were hesitant to make a purchase, since there were no shown reviews, as well as no possibility to write one.
Based on wireframe prototype and findings from usability study, i added more interactions and features into high-fidelity mockups, as well as came up with the visual design for the responsive website.
What I Learned
Through my second individual project focused on designing a shopping experience for an art studio, i gained valuable knowledge in UX design principles and techniques. This project deepened my understanding of user-centered design and the importance of iterations based on user feedback. Moving forward, i plan to continue improving my designs and refining website structure.
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