Overview
Product
Beauty Bloom is an e-commerce site specializing in beauty and personal care products, competing with sites like Sephora and Ulta.
Objective
Improve the website design to enhance user navigation and increase sales.
Mission
Conduct user testing to generate ideas for reorganizing website content.
Goal
Create an intuitive navigation structure to improve user experience and drive conversions.
Scope
Conduct content reorganization, card sorting, tree testing, and create a final sitemap.
Steps
- List Gathering: Compiled a comprehensive list of pages and content types relevant to beauty and personal care e-commerce sites.
- Card Sorting: Conducted an open card sort with users to understand how they categorize beauty products and related content.
Key Findings
Based on the similarity matrix results, order history, FAQs, privacy and security settings were commonly grouped, indicating users may expect to see items related to profile management grouped together.
In addition, users frequently grouped child categories with parent categories, such as shampoos and conditioners with hair treatments, and lipsticks and mascaras with makeup brushes.
The card sort was essential to draw conclusions about user preferences and provided recommendations for creating a navigation structure that allows users to easily and quickly find what they need based on associations.
- Tree Testing: Designed a tree test with 5 tasks (e.g., finding a specific skincare product, locating a product category) and tested with users to evaluate the proposed IA.
- Report Compilation: Summarized findings, highlighting user organization patterns and navigation preferences, and provided recommendations for optimizing the IA.
- Final Sitemap: Created a final sitemap that reflects user-centered content organization.
Key Results
- Insights: Users preferred categorizing products by type (e.g., skincare, makeup) and brand rather than the company’s previous organization by business goals.
- Improvements: Improved user navigation and reduced time to find products by 25%.
Client Testimonial
“Tish Consults’ user-centered approach to redesigning our site has greatly enhanced our customers’ shopping experience, making it easier for them to find what they need.”
Reflection
Challenges Faced: One challenge was recruiting participants for the card sort and tree test. We addressed this by leveraging online beauty forums and communities.
Learnings: Understanding user preferences for content categorization is crucial for designing intuitive navigation.
Feedback and Iteration: Incorporated user feedback from the card sort and tree test to refine the final sitemap and ensure it met user needs.