A UX Design Case Study
Ginkgo Gardens
This is a conceptual website design for the local D.C. nursery, Ginkgo Gardens.
My focus during the project was to add an e-commerce addition to their website while reinventing the style guide and homepage.
Overview
UX Researcher
UX Designer
My Role
Duration
Platform
One Week Sprint
Desktop Site
Team
Meg Beauregard
The Challenge
Create a cohesive and modern e-commerce website for Gingko Gardens
Develop a simple design system to work from
Ensure a smooth process for shoppers from start to finish
Design Sprint Challenge
Problem Statement
Harvie needs a way to research and order plants online that will leave him feeling confident in the heath, safety, and quality of his plant upon arrival.
Goals
Must use the given target audience
Must be focused on e-commerce
Research Methods
Throughout my process, every method I use follows this general timeline from start to finish
User Surveys
The chart to the left shows my favorite finding. Users had the ability to freely type out how they felt when they shop for a new plant. As you can see, shopping for plants is an overwhelmingly positive, exciting, and joyous experience for most people. Moving forward, I knew I had to hold onto that feeling throughout the site.
Key Findings:
30% of users only shop local nurseries, and another 30% will shop locally only if it's convenient
66% of users would like to know about other buyer's reviews of the plan
Most users found the look of the plant to be the driving factor when determining what plant to buy.
50% of users find out about plants they wish to buy through the internet
Over 50% of users were concerned about the safety and quality of their plant upon arrival
Insights
How Do Users Feel Shopping For Plants?
Current Site
Overall, we can see people want to find good-looking plants and they want to feel happy doing it! This drives home the point that a local nursery with an e-commerce presence is desired and likely profitable.
The current website features very cluttered UI, and gives users no ability to see current stock or order the plants for shipping to their home.
Research Deliverables
Persona
Behaviors:
Online Shopping at home after work
Trying new things if he finds a good deal
Planning out his future purchases
Gardening in his backyard
Tending to his houseplants
Needs:
A way to compare prices
A way to find products that are on sale
A guarantee his plants will arrive safely
A place to learn about plants without having to read complicated product descriptions
Resources to help him avoid repeat purchases
“I want to buy an exotic plant online, but I'm worried the plant want meet my expectations when it arrives”
Frustrations:
He sometimes repeats purchases in error
He does not like complicated product descriptions
Journey Map
HOME
PLANT SELECTED
CART
SHOP
Once I had worked out the main pain points and desires of users like Harvie, I sketched ideas and eventually landed on a concept. I took my concept into Figma and created these wireframes for use in usability testing.
Wireframes
Problem: All users struggled to find the "favorites" button within the website
Solution: A favorites button was added to the header and removed from previous location
Problem: some users struggled to understand if an item had been added to their cart
Solution: A confirmation overlay that will appear after a user clicks "add to cart" was added
Problem: Users struggled to understand how the plants in the shop were organized
Solution: A sort button was added so users could sort the plants in ways relevant to their search.
Before moving on, I wanted to determine if my site was intuitive. To do so, I tested the above prototype on 5 users. I gave them a series of tasks to complete and found the following problems to iterate upon.
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Usability Testing
Here you can see the full process Harvie takes from the point he opens up the website until he finishes checkout.
Making sure to take Harvie's needs into account, there are a few features that are not seen utilized, however would be built out for Harvie's convenience in the future.
He has the ability to see concise info about the plant's needs as well as info about how it ships
A feature to compare plants to one another is seen in the right corner of the screen
A feature to filter by plants that have been previously bought, as well as to filter by sale price.