Pitaya
Project Overview
Pitaya is a clothing boutique that was established back in 1990, having expanded to sixteen locations across the country since then. While their stores attract many girls who are hoping to buy the latest trends, they have yet to enter the online clothing market. I decided to design a responsive, e-commerce website for Pitaya by conducting research and creating a new brand identity for them.
The Problem
Pitaya currently relies solely on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to market their products; however, they have the potential to expand their online sales and grow their business with a responsive website. A responsive website will not only allow Pitaya’s customers to shop their clothing more efficiently, but it will also meet Pitaya’s business goals by boosting their online sales.
Research
In preparation to dive into my research, I first set some clear goals and created a research plan that would guide my research process…
Understand the market trends of the clothing industry
Identify Pitaya’s target market
Identify Pitaya’s competitors and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses
Identify what motivates customers to shop online vs. in store
Discover pain points customers encounter when shopping online/offline
Determine what factors into a great online shopping experience.
Market Research
I started by conducting market research to familiarize myself with the online shopping market. I collected information that helped me understand what the general market trends are and who the market is composed of. Here are some key findings from my market research:
The most popular online shopping category worldwide is clothing and shoes, meaning there is a promising market for Pitaya to grow in.
More than 268 million American consumers shop online, which is over 80% of the entire US. population.
The top five reasons that people shop online are:
Convenience of not going to shops in person
Saves time
Ability to compare prices
Online sales and discounts
There is a greater selection
More than 55% of US consumers prefer to shop online.
The largest percentage of e-commerce shoppers in the United States consisted of adults aged 18 to 34 in 2023.
E-commerce sales are expected to grow 10.5% in 2024.
41% of online shoppers say that positive customer reviews are a significant motivator for their purchases.
Women are still more likely than men to purchase clothing and accessories online; however, men tend to spend more money and shop online more frequently in 2021 than women do.
A poor online experience has prevented 22% of Gen Z shoppers from making a purchase 3-5 times in the past year.
User Interviews
Now that I had a better understanding of the market and Pitaya’s competitors, I wanted to dive more deeply into who Pitaya’s customers are and understand what their experiences shopping have been like.
I interviewed three people that matched the demographics that I identified in my market research. Some of the questions I asked were:
How often do you shop online?
Tell me about your most recent experience online shopping.
How do you typically discover new clothing brands?
What motivates you to shop online as opposed to shopping in person?
What factors influence what clothing store to shop at?
Affinity Map
After conducting interviews with these users, I wanted to synthesize this new information in order to evaluate the users’ needs and frustrations. I organized all of the notes I took during the interviews into categories that would help me identify any commonalities between the users.
Insights:
People like to shop online due to its convenience.
People like to easily browse through categories when online shopping to find what they want.
People want to be able to read reviews on products and easily see what’s trending.
Needs:
To shop efficiently and quickly
To easily look at a wide selection of products
To access reviews and product recommendations
2x2 Matrix
Additionally, I utilized a 2x2 matrix to identify what issues are important to Pitaya’s consumers versus Pitaya’s business. It helped me understand what issues I needed to prioritize and how to balance both the users’ and business’ needs.
Most Important (User), Least Important (Business)
Home Page Experience
Most Important (User and Business)
Finding prices + descriptions easily
Seeing a variety of products
Knowing what's trending + worth it
Least Important (User), Least Important (Business)
Least Important (User), Most Important (Business)
Maintaining brand identity
Marketing
User Persona
With a deeper understanding of the user’s needs, motivations, and frustrations, I created a user persona based on all the insights I gathered from my research. I made sure to keep this persona in mind when designing Pitaya’s website in order to ensure that my solution effectively addressed their goals. Meet Hannah:
Product Roadmap
Based on my findings, I started strategically deciding what features I should prioritize and implement through a product roadmap.
Information Architecture
Keeping the prioritized solutions in mind, I created a site map to clearly structure the content on Pitaya’s website in a way that would be simple and logical for the user to navigate.
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
Using what I’d learned so far, I started to decide how the content on Pitaya's website would be organized based on the goals I wanted to meet. I created a digital low-fidelity prototype, adding enough information for the users to navigate through the website’s layout during usability testing. These low-fidelity prototypes would allow me to identify what needed to be improved during the next phase in order to optimize user experience.
Usability Testing
After completing my low-fidelity prototype, I started formulating a plan to conduct usability testing. I then recruited participants and observed how they interacted with my design, identifying where the design's usability could be improved.
Tasks:
See what is currently trending.
View tops that are just in.
Find the price of a top.
Test Summary:
Method: Moderated usability testing (Think Aloud)
Participants: 3
Age: 18-23 years
Average Time: 3 minutes
Task Completion Rate: 100%
Empathy Map
I used an empathy map to synthesize my findings from the usability tests, categorizing these issues by what the users said, did, and felt. Through the patterns I identified, I was able to identify common pain points amongst our participants.
2/3 were confused by how to navigate back to home after clicking on “Just in: Tops.”
2/3 didn’t like that they had to press a button to load more results and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Based on these pain points, I was able to make note of the improvements that I needed to prioritize when designing the high fidelity prototype.
Have clear navigation by implementing back arrows at the top of the screen
Instead of having a “load more” button, separate all the items into several pages so users don’t have to scroll as much
Branding
Now that I had an idea of how to refine the website’s structure, I worked on revamping Pitaya’s branding before moving onto the UI design of the website. Using what I knew about Pitaya’s brand attributes (girly, trendy, modern, and fun), I created a UI kit that would effectively communicate their unique brand personality.
Hifi Screens
After defining Pitaya’s new branding and uncovering what needed to be improved from the usability testing, I created high-fidelity designs of the key screens.
Interactive Prototype
I created a high-fidelity, interactive prototype for usability testing in order to understand how users interact with the website and identify where further improvements could be made.
Test
Using the interactive prototype I created, I began to retest my design on different users to measure its usability. I gave them several tasks, noting how their experiences seemed to improve after I adjusted my design. I also observed further areas of improvement.
Key Patterns:
5/5 participants were able to select the product size.
5/5 participants completed the checkout process with no issues.
3/5 participants struggled with adding a product to favorites.
4/5 participants wanted a “quick add” feature
5/5 participants found product reviews.
Implement Changes
Make improvements in the design based on the feedback from the second round of usability testing.
Handoff the Design
After finalizing the design and conducting more testing, I would hand this off to developers to start building the website.
Advanced Features
I would add more value to Pitaya's online shopping experience by implementing the more advanced features that are listed on the product roadmap.