This is an eCommerce website for a company called Jiraffe. They specialize in making limited edition 5-panel hats for customers. They were previously selling small quantities of hats at events on the East Coast and in Denver, CO. Once business started to take off many customers asked if they had a website so I designed this to allow their customers to order directly offline instead of by phone or email like they were doing in the past. This is the prototype of the homepage and key screens.
Problem- Jiraffe can’t reach its goals by selling its product only at events. They need a way to showcase their products on an eCommerce website and allow users to pay directly online.
Process- I started by looking at other competitors in the hat market and how they displayed their content. I then met with the owners and showed them a prototype of what their “Jiraffe” website could look like and its functionality. They specialize in making limited edition runs and have gained a large following in the market with this offering. With that in mind, I asked users, “What is the first thing you might expect to see when you visit this site?” 84% of users said they wanted to know what the “newest arrivals” were because they sell out the quickest and before they had a website you would have to email them and the item was already sold at an event by then. I displayed the “newest arrivals” as the hero image for their brand because the users felt that was the most important item that they were seeking when buying a “Jiraffe” hat. By putting new arrivals in the hero section Jiraffe sold out of their first batch in minutes after posting it on social media and continues to sell out of their limited edition line when repeating this process.
Issues- Jiraffe didn’t have a large budget to create this eCommerce website from scratch which made it difficult to get user feedback. To solve this problem went down to the Denver skatepark and recruited 35 users that matched their ideal persona. I awarded them with promo kits for the brand with stickers and booklets about Jiraffe which had a 50% off promo code for their first purchase. I got an overwhelming response from the users and the company didn’t have to spend any money upfront for the feedback.
My Role- This was a freelance project where I did the entire process end-to-end and handed off the website to the owners to maintain. I conducted market research, user research, high-fidelity prototypes, and all of the product photography. I really enjoyed working with this small company and it was a great experience to build a custom-designed website for a local business. Though this project fell more into UI Design I still convinced them that we needed valuable user research and feedback before launching the website to make sure users were completing the buy flow and making notes of any pain points. Overall, the “Jiraffe” website was a success and they now have a way to sell their products online instead of just traveling to events to sell them which cost them a lot of money in expenses.