Redesign the UNICOO website
Redesigned Unicoo into a user-friendly E-commerce website.
Overview
Background
Unicoo was founded in August 2014, an exclusive brand that focused on home & office furniture. Unicoo's products include different versions of the standing desk, kids' furniture, overbed table, and home furniture.
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For the past six years, Unicoo has been focused on sales on Amazon.com and has reached 1 million sales per year.
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​Now, Unicoo wants to shift its primary sales channel from Amazon.com to its website. So, Unicoo hired me to redesign its website.
Role
Product designer
Duration
Aug - Oct 2020
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Zeplin
Problem and solution
Problem
Unicoo has its website built to be a premium seller on Amazon. It has rarely used its website as an official sell channel. After a few rounds of research, I identified Unicoo's website as:
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unclear structure to let customers finish their tasks
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unclear brand image
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no room for future development
Solution
I recently created a new website for Unicoo that caters to the requirements of its users. The site was designed to meet the company's future development needs and present a cohesive brand image. From research to implementation, I was responsible for the entire process..
Understanding Unicoo
Before beginning work with a client, I always prefer to have a conversation with them. This allows me to better understand their business structure, history, and future goals, which is invaluable information for my designs moving forward.
UNICOO's ambition
Unicoo aims to transition its primary sales channel from Amazon.com to its own website. By redesigning its website, Unicoo hopes to establish its own brand in the office and home furniture industry. Rather than focusing solely on sales, Unicoo seeks to build a recognizable brand identity within the next five years.. ​
UNICOO's products
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Standing desk series (featured series): electric desk / crank desk / desk top / desk frame.
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Kids furniture: study table & chair set / kids learning stool.
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Over-bed table.
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Space organizer.
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Shoe rack.
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Wine rack.
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Bookshelf.
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Bed end table.
Price range
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The price range for a crank standing desk is between $199 - $399.
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The price range for an electric standing desk is between $399 - $599.
Insights
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Unicoo has the ambition and the financial power to found its own brand.
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Most Unicoo products are not cheap.
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Standing desk is the signature product, while Unicoo keeps a big product pool.
Current website
I have done some research of Unicoo's current website to get a fully understanding of the situation here.
Partial current main page
The navigation bar: overly simple structured, hard for users to perform the tasks.
For the rest of the main page, Unicoo just puts most of their products there randomly.
For the footer section, Unicoo didn't provide useful information there, nor any introduction about its own company.
Current sitemap
To further identify the problem, I have conducted the current sitemap of Unicoo.
Insights
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The main tructure is overly simple, which failed to provide easy access for users to perform tasks.
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​From design perspective, Unicoo failed to establish an identical brand image.
Customer research
I downloaded 5 years' worth of shopping records from Unicoo on Amazon and analyzed the data using Python. My goal was to gain insight into what customers are purchasing from Unicoo and whether their experiences are positive or negative. This information will help us build a better website.
Bought item
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Standing desk: 68%
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Kids products: 15%
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Other products: 17%
Order quantity
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1 product: 74%
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2-10 products: 10%
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over 10 products: 16%
Return rate
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11.2 %
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average rate: 6-9%
Second-time buy rate
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6%
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average rate: 8%
Previous sales data
After reviewing the sales record, I observed that Unicoo products have a high return rate and a low rate of second-time purchases. In order to uncover the underlying cause of this trend, and gain a better understanding of customers' positive experiences and challenges with Unicoo, I had conversations with Unicoo's customer service representatives. Additionally, I diligently recorded all customer service cases over a two-week period.
As we can see from the chart, the two main problems customers are dealing with are product and installation problems. And after customer services, the solution rate of installation problems can be as high as 87%. While we can't do anything about the products, we can increase the installation experience with Unicoo with our website.
Customer service
Brief interview
Unicoo has most of its sales on Amazon, and Amazon won't allow sellers to contact customers directly. We can only briefly talk with customers when they call us for customer service. And we have conducted these talks for two weeks. The talk includes their demographic information, online shopping habits, and their concerns about home & office furniture.
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Here are the significant findings:
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About 50% of respondents shop for furniture both in-store and online; 25% shop exclusively online
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Price, style, material, and color matter more than brand
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Size, warranty, return policy, assembly, ratings & reviews, and sustainability are also important to customers
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Primary concerns include getting an item that does not look like the photos
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Delivery to door, movability, and ability to return items matters a lot when buying online
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User empathy
Following research, I synthesized my research findings in order to better understand users and their problems. I dug deep into my observations and findings, developing two user personas and storyboards to summarize and communicate all my research findings in a human-centered way.
User empathy
Following research, I synthesized my research findings to understand users and their problems better. I dug deep into my observations and conclusions, developing two user personas and storyboards to summarize and communicate all my research findings in a human-centered way.
Define goal
By this point, I understood the critical business and user/customer goals and where they overlapped. Identifying and keeping these goals in mind as I moved on to ideation and design was necessary.
Products display website
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Shopping friendly
Website direction
After a discussion with the Unicoo team and some customers, we have decided the website should be:
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Mainly for product display.
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The experience should be shopping-friendly.
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Leave space for future product line expansion.
Information Architecture
With a clearer picture of the problems that needed solving, I generated ideas and potential solutions that would meet user and business needs. I created a task flow of an ideal user path to purchase on the Unicoo website.
Task flow
Now I had a solid grasp of the main flows, but I needed to design pages that would enable these flows. And one big problem with Unicoo is that it has too many uncategorized items, like end tables, book racks, and other products. The website would need to organize the company’s products in a way that makes sense to customers.
So, I asked five people to complete a remote open card sort to test my assumptions about how people categorize everyday furniture items. This helped me define the website’s information architecture, which I illustrated with a high-level sitemap.
Card sorting
The big structure
Secondary research
Although we have a prominent structure here, we still need sub-categories to create a complete site. As the furniture market is relatively mature, I referenced other websites to complete the sitemap for Unicoo in office furniture areas, like Vari, Fezibo, and FlexiSpot. In the e-commerce area, I draw insights from websites that have the best user experiences, like Nike, Coach, and Madewell.
The complete sitemap
Low fedility prototype
Testing
With my initial wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype for usability testing. To ensure the prototype is user-friendly, I define the objectives and tasks for users to complete.
Tasks
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Buy a two-tier electric standing desk.​
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Buy a kid learning stool.
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Use bulk buying.
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Locate the instruction video.
Objectives
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Whether people can navigate through the website smoothly
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Whether the website can meet different people's expectations and needs.
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Identify their frustrations
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Identify their expectations that I might have missed
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Results
A total of 5 participants tested the prototype. All tasks had a 100% completion rate. But the task of buying a kid learning stool took a longer time to accomplish compared to others.
Interview
Even though I received the quantitative test results, I conducted interviews with all of them. This was because I believe that some valuable insights and ideas can be uncovered through conversation and communication. During the interviews, I was able to identify their frustrations, satisfactions, and expectations. Below are the findings that I discovered.
Iterating
Following prototype testing and user interviews, we have decided to implement modifications to better meet user expectations and improve the overall user-friendliness of the Unicoo website.
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Home page
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​Shorten the description of the standing desk​
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Add other product collections
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Add more Unicoo brand function
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Production collection page
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Unify every collection style​
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Shorten the length of every collection
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Unicoo branding
Products collection
About us
Home page
Unicoo features
Special offer
Customer review
Category page
Shortened and unified the design of every product collection
Modified sitemap
Branding and UI design
From Unicoo side
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Overall clean and professional design style.
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Be detailed oriented with the product introduction section.
Unicoo main brand.
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Logo
​I attempted to create various versions of a logo for Unicoo, but I came to the realization that the brand's name is not too lengthy and is currently in the process of establishing its own identity. As such, I simply made minor adjustments to the font to achieve a clean and contemporary aesthetic.
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Font
The Montserrat typeface draws on a rich history of craftsmanship and local knowledge to combine and preserve in a new typeface ready for use in the most modern environments. It echoes Unicoo's brand essence: craftsmanship in the furniture area and modern style.
Montserrat Regular 48px
Heading 1
Montserrat Bold 24px
Heading 2
Montserrat Regular 18px
Text
Button
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Color Palette
Unicoo aims to appeal to professionals who earn an above-average income and leave them with a clean, calm, and successful impression. To meet these needs, I chose a predominantly dark blue color scheme with a touch of metal gray to create a modern and expensive feel.
Unicoo Kids.
As Unicoo plans to develop the kids' product line in the future, the company wants to create a visual design for kids specifically. I mainly used vibrant colors and cute fonts for the kids' series to cater to kids' needs.
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Symbol and logo
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Color palette
Meet Unicoo website
Home page
The home page is the place where we showcase the essence, image, ambition, and products of Unicoo to our customers.
To convey Unicoo's attitude, I have included three splash pictures in the top area. The following section highlights the three primary services that Unicoo offers, namely free shipping, free returns, and excellent customer service. Additionally, I have featured Unicoo's signature products, spirit, and customer reviews. By browsing through the main page, customers can get a good idea of what Unicoo is all about. customers can get a good idea of what Unicoo is all about.
Product collections
As Unicoo has too many products, I categorized them into different collections and displayed them from the most important to the least.
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By doing this, I also saved room for Unicoo's future development, which is happening soon, according to Unicoo.
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Design-wise, we choose a simple layout to let customers see the products.
Product detail
Based on our research, the product detail page on the Unicoo website is often the entry point for visitors who find us through Google search.
Our research participants revealed that they favor high-resolution and clear product images. In response, I have updated the page copy to meet SEO standards and added detailed product images, including pictures of products in office or home settings.
Final Prototype
What I have learned
Designer VS manager.
It's my first product design project that I am in charge of from start to finish.
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I switch my perception of design from a designer to a manager. Instead of just thinking about the website, I start thinking about Unicoo as a company and how I can help it to reach its goal. So I have extended my work scope to define its brand and set up social media marketing. All of these have elevated my understanding of product design to a whole new level.
Test small.
Efficiency is crucial for all businesses. During projects, Unicoo frequently suggests new ideas for me to try out such as different layouts, structures, and fonts. To save time and energy, I create a quick sketch to present to the company for approval before implementing the changes throughout the site.
Use every resource
Smaller businesses often lack the resources of larger companies, but this shouldn't stop designers from fulfilling their responsibilities. It's important to utilize all available resources to complete the job. For instance, Unicoo may not have sufficient funds or personnel to conduct market research, and Amazon may not provide customer information. However, I have found that seeking assistance from the customer service team has been effective. Thanks to their help, I can confidently carry out my duties in any situation.