Online shop for the finest in Titanium products
Company
FinessCity
Scope
2 months
My Role
Product Designer
Tags
Website Design, E-commerce
01 FinessCity
Titanium
FinessCity is a company that sells titanium cutlery and accessories suited for indoor and the toughest of adventures.
Despite the fact that their products had been available on Amazon since 2015, they decided to develop their own specialized e-commerce platform.
02 Case Summary
Product Vision
An easy-to-navigate, simple and clean online shop to sell their premium titanium cutlery and accessories. The vision was to build a shop that would complement their Amazon store and attract additional customers while promoting the benefits of titanium. It could also be used to establish the brand.
Challenge
Design an efficient online shop in a short amount of time that will satisfy both the business as a presentation site/e-commerce platform and the customer expectations.
Outcomes
By following heuristics, best practices, and research findings, I was able to come up with a design that tested well for both the specific buyer and the more general one. The cognitive load was reduced as much as possible, and that improved the funnel so that finding the product and starting the checkout process was intuitive.
03 Research, discovery and analysis
Kickoff
What do I need
Kickoff sessions are usually a very good way to sketch a roadmap.
In this situation, I wanted to familiarize myself with the industry and compile some e-commerce heuristics basics.
I would benchmark the need to interview people against constraints. Then I'd evaluate and try to identify problems, which I'd run through a best practices filter to see how many of them might be handled using current market solutions. And improving from there.
Business
I studied the info that FinessCity gave me and started a desk research about how the titanium accessories market operated in general. I conducted a benchmark using a provided list of competitors, which gave me a better understanding of the industry.
The requirements were to have a relatively simple and clean e-commerce to position themselves in the market, so the source of sales was not that dependable of Amazon.
The need for interviewing
This was a bit of a challenge. I had to decide very fast if I really needed quality insights from real users recruited by me. The process would prolong the execution of the website, and the gain could not be that great.
So I compared them based on 2 factors. The first was the vast amount of literature about e-commerce frictions and how to avoid them. The second was that, no matter the user, the path for this kind of customer journey was very well established. After all, Amazon sells everything using the same flow.
Data from literature has to be taken carefully in most cases, for almost every product. The second factor, though, made me realize that even if I were to get quality data, the problems I could find would probably be solved with standard e-commerce solutions.
Hard choice
That, plus the fact that, as per my observations, the specific buyer did not have any special needs (when buying) compared to another kind of buyer, plus the tight time constraint given, made me scratch out the interviews.
DISCLAIMER
I believe qualitative interviewing is always a good thing, don't get me wrong. But in this scenario, I concluded that an e-commerce site from scratch can be built by following what works and adapting later with real customers who went through the experience. I would address issues during testing and improve accordingly.
Analyzing
Within context
I read hundreds of reviews, comments, and forums and analyzed all this data looking for specific problems that owners and potential buyers of titanium products would face. Always in the context of an online shop. It is very interesting that they complain about poor quality or the weird smell of titanium, but it does not give us any insight into the experience with the shop.
Interestingly enough, no issue was too big that it could not be taken care of with a great and straightforward shopping experience. And the specific user seemed to be used to buying online (unlike people who buy clothes or perfumes).
Catching up
Not my first rodeo, but I always prefer to refresh the basics and best practices. To round out my desk research, I read a ton of literature about e-commerce best practices, pain points to avoid, and took notes on actionable points for my design.
04 Information Architecture
Mapping findability
As with every other product, I spend a considerable amount of time getting the information architecture right. The purpose is to make sure that people do find what they are expecting. Otherwise, the experience will fail.
Following heuristics and best practices for e-commerce, I grouped the main sections on the top bar, while they would be reiterated on the footer, which would include extra info links and a newsletter box.
I tried the navigation to be as clear and simple to spot as possible, while not taking too much space to disturb the journeys.
05 Home page
06 Products page
07 Product details
08 Sustainability and Charity
Active stand
FinessCity is great for many things. One aspect that is underrepresented on the Amazon page is their empathy towards the planet and communities in need.
They wanted to let visitors know they cared with more than words. Their product was already a step in the right direction regarding sustainable development.
They also donate 2,5% of their profits to charity to help communities in need, minorities, inclusion, and diversity.
They wanted these facts to be included as part of the hero banner, so the potential buyer knows not only about the characteristics of the product, but also about its ecological properties and the goodness that comes from purchasing it here.
