Sneakerhead.com is an e-commerce website specialized in brand name sneakers, targeting both shoe collectors and casual shoppers. In mid 2017, I led the end to end design effort to shorten the lengthy process, display shopping context and provide immediate help to users. During user testing, we successfuly lower the average time spent by 20%.
The original design was done back in 2013. Most features were from default Magento settings and failed to provide a friendly checkout experience.
We estimated our mobile users would surpass desktop users in 9 month, however the mobile site checkout rate is only half of desktop checkout rate.
About 80% of our users are first time users which means our customer retation rate is low. We'd like to build a healthier customer base and reward our SEO effort and onlind AD spent.
"The goal is to create a concise checkout flow that builds trust between customers and the business."
The first step was to reduce cognitive load. We removed all unnecessary elements and identified confusing contents.
Took out optional steps from main user flow, combined related information and rearrange checkout step order to optimize checkout process.
Cleaned up visual noise and designed a style guide from scratch to improve visual hierarchy, readability, accessibility, and consistency.
Having filled information and order summary always on screen to help final decision making. Added animations between steps for reading guidance.
Built a in-page help system. Customer service number, shipping, and return information woould be available all time during checkout. No need to go to a separate page and break current shopping journey.
This is the first user centric design at Sneakerhead. During prototype testing, customers finished the checkout process 20% faster in average and felt it's a more controllable, clear and easy to follow process overall. Although unfortunately, it's never had a chance to be in production and validated with real data, this is still a valuable design practice for the company and following designers.
