About
Jordan’s Furniture is a furniture company located in the New England states, and contains the largest selection of name brand furniture for the North East. Upon learning about Jordan’s I found that they were more than just your typical furniture company you would walk in to search for your newest furniture piece. They were an entire experience with each of there locations in the Northeast containing a different attraction, in addition to their furniture. Multiple locations include IMAX theatres, and depending on which store you visit with your family you’ll be pleased to find an adventure ropes course, restaurants, freshly made donuts, and movie rides. Jordan’s couch and sectional offering comes in an array of 1000s of different fabric swatches and leathers, and some come with pillows that you can coordinate to go with your custom tailored couch.
The Problem
Jordan’s is an exciting store and experience in person, but their website was unable to match the in person experience they offered. Jordan’s product page had a lot of content that needed better organization, and was overwhelming to the user. One of Jordan’s biggest offerings is that the couches and sectionals could be customized with an array of fabrics and leathers, but the custom selection was hidden behind a drop down menu that was clunky.
The Solution
I conducted an initial heuristic evaluation on Jordan’s competitors, plus other e-commerce websites to brainstorm potential user solutions that would help improve the Jordan’s online experience for their users, and to also allow Jordan’s product page to show why they stand out in their industry compared to their competitors. I recommended that Jordan’s use a new custom fabric selector that would help to highlight and show case the variety of options available to the user. Additionally their content was reorganized to have a cleaner approach that the user could easily search for the category or details they needed to find.
My Role
My team consisted of two designs plus one project manager. My design partner worked on the home page design recommendation while I worked on the product page experience recommendation for our sales effort with Jordans. My responsibilities included performing market research, wire frames, and providing high fidelity prototypes of the product pages. I followed a mobile first design strategy that would be easily responsive for both desktop and mobile.
Analyzing Jordan’s Furniture Website
I started this project looking over Jordan’s as a company and more about their stores. Jordan’s in store experience, is a fun and exciting experience. How can we make Jordan’s online shopping experience exciting as well? I wrote down a few questions to start with:
How can we simplify the data shown to the user, so that it is more easily found?
How might we make selecting an upholstery fabric easier and more interactive for the user?
How might we make the experience less overwhelming for a user whom doesn’t like to design and wants options suggested to them?
Competitive Research
I studied a few product page experiences with custom fabric selectors across multiple industries to indicate design patterns and their offerings to a user.
I found competitors in other industries with customization tools that were more interactive for the user. (Jordan’s website struggles with this functionality not having a large enough presence.)
I gathered that many new up and coming brands and websites had a better aesthetic and organized their content in a way that the user could easily find what they needed (Article, Joybird, Anthropologie).
The competitors websites were more flexible and efficient for a broader range of users regardless of how tech savvy they are.
While comparing different industry pages I found inspiration in shoe and car companies (ie. Vans, Converse, Toyota) that prioritized the products image to be fuller sized and presented the customization tools beneath the image so that the user did not need to zoom in on the image or search for color swatches in a hidden menu.
One of the more important features I found was the documentation that summarized the users selections prior to adding the item to their cart for checkout. (West Elm, Anthropologie)
Wireframes
An item that the stakeholders mentioned during our sales discussion was that they knew they needed their content to be better organized. Frequently the users accidentally scroll past Jordan’s customization tool that is hidden behind a drop down button. Secondly the load times for the customization tool was very long, and would cause user frustration.
During wire-framing I took inspiration to add a full width customization tool that would not be hidden behind a drop down menu or a link to begin customizing. I made sure that the new customization tool would be easily accessible for the user to interact with and also show that Jordan’s is an exciting brand. They needed a product page that matched their in store experience.
Persona Types
My team and I looked into and discussed what persona types we would need to make sure to consider during design. There are two persona types Jordan’s would need to consider catering to while purchasing furniture online. The first user will visit the site with a specific color and style in mind, and will want the option to customize to match their style. The second user type is a client who does not like to have to think about customization and feels more comfortable with being provided professional product style and color recommendations.
Prototyping
The final design included several updates, and focused two solutions for both personas The first option is a revamped customization tool for fabric, pillows, or chair legs. The secondary design solution was a section for designer recommendations, that the user can select a pre determined recommendation and it will automatically update their custom color selections in the custom summary section.
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