Client: Kruidvat
Date: 2017/2018
Client: Kruidvat
Date: 2017/2018
In 2017 Kruidvat approached us to design their customers a new user experience. Their current user experience left customers feeling like they were buying from a dated retailer, often dropping off during the checkout due to unclear direction and a general lack of visual aids.
The challenge we faced was that we were only able to make front-end changes based off the current website functionality available, and were only given eight weeks to complete the project. This encouraged us to think more creatively on how we were to improve the experience for our customers while working around the confines of the site's existing functionality.
Using Hot Jar, we put heat maps and click tracking on the old website to see where customers were leaving the site. Based on the findings from the tests, we found that the search functionality was the website's most utilised element. By focusing on developing the search functionality and making it a more integral part of the website, we were able to encourage customers to use the search functionality, help them find what they needed faster and turn them into a conversion.
We also organised user testing to track customers' mouse movements throughout the website, primarily focusing on product detail pages. We decided to focus on these pages through insight from our analytics team’s findings that often customers dropped off the site here. The most interesting aspect of this research was that an unexpected volume of customers quickly made their way to the review section.
Our UX Specialist created wireframes and IXD models to explain the new user journeys to our stakeholders. As Lead Designer, I presented these to the senior team and stakeholders along with the visual designs.
The challenge was to take the brand's look and feel and translate that into an easy to use website. The brand was designed to be very loud and invasive, so minimising this effect whilst also keeping the positive elements of the brand represented a huge challenge.
To start with, we designed the majority of the components we were going to need to maximise efficiency. We started with CTA's, colours and interface elements before progressing onto more complex components.
We designed the visual designs within 8 weeks in 3 batches using Agile methodology.
The designs for the checkout were done at a later date as it was not in the initial scope. Kruidvat had employed a third party to design the checkout prior to tasking us with the project. The design for the checkout was particularly challenging given the amount of options available to the user. This was compounded by the fact that the third party designed checkout did not fit the technical requirements set by the tech team. Therefore I had to act quickly and design a compatible checkout in 1 week with an additional week for amends. To compensate for the lack of time and research in this area we took learning’s from our other websites and adhered to best practice as much as possible.
This huge team effort involving Tech, SEO, UX, Analytics and content experts resulted in a website that is currently up 36% in conversion and brought in over €1m on Black Friday 2018, just weeks after it’s launch.
