Swifty Sports
Client:
Swifty Sports
Project Type:
Solo Concept Project
Duration:
2-week Sprint
My Role:
UX Researcher & Designer
Brief: Tasked with creating a responsive web application for a fictional sports retailer wanting to enter the online market.
UX Process: Business Analysis, Contextual Inquiry, Competitive Analysis, Guerilla Interviews, User Interviews, Experience Map, Information Architecture, Site Mapping, User Flows, Wireframing, Ideation and Usability, User Testing, Rapid Prototyping, Visual Design, Accessibility
Project Overview
Tasked with creating a responsive web application for fictional client, Swifty Sports, over a two-week sprint.
The client was a local sports retailer who wanted to enter the online market with an e-commerce site that showcased their popular products, whilst maintaining their 'small shop' brand appeal. It was important for the site to reward loyalty for repeat customers, as well as communicate the reputable customer service they were known for.
Finding that trust and receiving recommendations was an important factor when purchasing sportswear online, I designed a site that placed customer service at the fore, with an online chat service and a personable membership programme to give a community feel.
The design process followed an agile framework, with the first week being research focused including contextual inquiries, competitive analysis and user interviews. The second week was dedicated to various stages of ideation, user testing and iteration, leading to a final mid-fidelity prototype. Following the course, I took the site up to high fidelity, considering all aspects of the UI design process.
BRAND REVIEW
Site visit and competitive research
For the site to succeed, I needed to know the competition. I researched the sporting retailer competitor landscape, taking note of the various elements they had on their sites, from membership programmes to the ability to filter by brand. The purpose of this was to see how they design for their users, identify competitor strengths and weaknesses, and get an overview of the features other brands were offering their customers.
I reported on direct competitor sporting retailers from Decathlon to SportsDirect and indirect competitor sporting brands including Nike, Adidas and ASICS, paying attention to the key features in the brief.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Who are the users?
Swifty Sports was a community focused, neighbourhood store with a varied customer base - ranging from local residents to tradespeople and businesses. For their retail site, they wanted to target a key segment of their customer base - students in their 20's. I proceeded to plan my user interviews, usability tests and surveys with people who matched this demographic.
USER RESEARCH
Interviews and survey
I like to shop on ASOS for sportswear as they have the brands I like, next day delivery and I can see the product on the model.
It’s easier to shop online for the busy millennials who tend to shop for sportswear with intention - they know what they want to purchase
They like the expertise they receive from shopping in-store, especially for products viewed as ‘technical’ like trainers
Indirect competitors ASOS and Amazon were popular for sportswear, citing: free next day delivery; product video features and accurate search bar.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Understanding the user
I condensed my insights down into a persona to illustrate the needs, goals and observed behaviour patterns of the target audience. It acted as a point of reference and informed all of my design decisions.
Max is a 27-year-old student from London studying for a masters in biodiversity. His main pain point is not being able to find the necessary expertise online when shopping for sportswear and his main motivation for choosing a brand is those who offer membership programmes or incentives like next day delivery.
"When I think of running, I think of Nike. When I think of tennis, I think of Babolat"
Max, 27, Student
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
Information architecture
Having been provided with a list of products stocked by Swifty Sports, I conducted an open and closed card sorting to uncover users' mental models around searching for information on a sportswear site. The purpose being to structure information based on what makes sense to the users, as opposed to the company.
I labelled the brand inventory and asked 8 users to organise each product into groups that made sense to them, assigning each a category title. The findings revealed most categorised by sport i.e. running; swimming; and by item type i.e. equipment; accessories; gender.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
Site mapping
I put together a sitemap to illustrate the structure of the e-commerce site based on the findings from the card sorting. Users were accustomed to shopping via 'Men', 'Women' and 'Kids' so I placed these on the global navigation, along with the desired 'sports' category and the business deliverable of 'Most Wanted.' The user research informed the information architecture, along with the deliverables in the brief, as highlighted below.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
The user flow
BRAINSTORMING
Sketching initial ideas
WIREFRAMING
Iterations and testing
