Our Target Audience..

Based on research found in our empathy mapping and user interviews, we’ve built our first customer — Alyson. We’ll be building for her as we go through this process.

Where we’re headed!

Between our beginning design brief, valuable input from our users, and the tech-y side of things — we’ve all agreed that we want a safe and reliable experience. As this is the main relation, there is plenty to make all parties equally happy with each other.

Card Sorting

It was important for us to perform an open card sort to organize how Mirror’s eCommerce website would be navigated. We did this to better understand how our users would prefer to get around Mirror’s new online venture.

Patterns we’ve found:

• 88% of users called for an Accessories cateory

• 5/8 users categorized socks with Footwear category over Accessories

• 50% of users called for a Formal category

• 88% of users also asked for a Casual category

Site Map

Our card sorting and goals lead us to visualizing the bones of the entire project — how will our website be organized? Based on what the users asked us for, a sitemap was tailored to keep Alyson and our project goals satisfied.

The Task Flow

Prior to diving into wireframing, we’ve created a visual to identify the main task flow of purchasing a product on Mirror’s eCommerce website. This was done to identify what pages needed to be prioritized upon creating a wireframe. We’ve divided our main task flow into three separate task flows — this will better organize our process later for wireframing and usability testing.

Key Features

Our research lead us to discover which features needed to be addressed to keep our users as far away from frustration as possible.

• Neatly organized navigation menu

• Filtering options

• Sizing charts (“that actually work" as stated by users)

• Promotional sales and codes for members

• Model fit information

Branding

A high priority request by Mirror was to design the new company logo. With the thought of everyone in mind, we wanted to create a logo that represented a long-standing company with established loyalty, despite it being the first time making an appearance in the online industry. With scalability in mind, we’ve decided on the simplicity on the first iteration seen to the left — we feel this best represents Mirror’s new venture. If you enjoy doodles or live by the pencil, check out the sketches below to preview where we came from!

Usability Testing

We conducted our usability testing with the following demographic for participants:

• 6 users

• Ages 19-35

• Has shopped online within 3-6 months

Usability testing was conducted via Zoom calls for varied durations of 6-18 minute calls. Users were instructed to perform our main task flow and provide feedback using a Think-Aloud method to pinpoint any priority revisions to be made in future steps.

Affinity Map

Proceeding usability testing, we compiled our information into categories relating in similarity via affinity mapping. This method allowed us to view insights based on majority preference. These preferences made by users revealed recommendations to serve as a guide for priority revisions.

We’ve discovered that users strive for high visual reward to ensure confidence in browsing. Not being able to physically touch a product serves as a barrier between a successful transaction and a good user experience.

The Experience

The overall look and feel of Mirror gives intentional references to mental models within our users. A familiar drop-down nav allows users to jump straight into shopping without a need to scroll upon landing on our home page.

To address the request of keeping things highly organized for our user comfort, a filter feature has been made available to better target a product of choice for our main task flow.

In further pursuit of a solid user experience, our users will be reminded of their cart contents before proceeding into the checkout process — this will simulate our users travelling to the registers in-store with their products in hand.