Luxury retail
Heuristic evaluation, wireframes, responsive website, UI styleguide
Senior Visual Designer
Agency team: client director, junior UX Designer, back-end, front-end developers
Overview
Redesign of the Coal Drops Yard website. Aiming at a clear yet unconventional interface, that helps customers find stores and events while sustaining brand uniqueness.
Challenge
The luxury department store developed a highly creative website, which was intended to enhance their uniqueness and strong brand. However, the website failed to meet user needs, with customers experiencing significant difficulties in finding basic information, locating the store, and participating in events.
Results
The new website makes use of the brand's strong colors, shapes, and typography to create a visual structure and enhance the simplified layout. It carefully guides users into the Coal Drops Yard experience, helping them know the space, find stores, learn about brands, events, and facilities.
This new structure and layout helped improve the website's performance and the overall perception of the centre.
Process
Research and Analysis: We conducted a heuristic evaluation to identify areas where the website hindered users in finding information, locating stores, and experiencing the space. Additionally, we analysed competitor online presence and industry trends to gain valuable insights.
Information Architecture: Based on the findings of the heuristic evaluation and users’ goals (to learn more about the space and its brands and experiences, find the space, and attend events), we redesigned the navigation and content structure, prioritising features and information that align with user needs.
Wireframing: We created low-fidelity wireframes to visualise the new layout and navigation, iteratively refining them based on client’s feedback.
Visual Design and Style Guide: We developed a cohesive yet impactful visual language, including colour schemes, typography, and iconography, ensuring consistency throughout the app. Furthermore, we created a style guide to maintain design consistency in future updates.
Essential Outcomes
The Coal Drops Yard website redesign successfully resolved the usability issues, resulting in a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. The enhanced UX/UI design led to increased user engagement and satisfaction, showcasing the significance of a robust site architecture coupled with distinctive design.
