HoneyFig is an online store that curates natural skincare and hair products. The company started as
a brick and mortar store, but closed their doors to sell exclusively online. They are focused on selling
only the best quality Canadian products, focused on natural and healthy ingredients.
The Challenge
Despite its amazing product range and unique placement in the market, the current website doesn't
speak to their prime audience or instill feelings of trust with their users. Many reported
feeling that it was out of date and therefore not a place where they would spend their money. How
can we update their website design to instill feelings of trust with their users?
The Outcome
Create an upgraded version of their website as now their business stems wholly from here. This website should
facilitate the search of products, better showcase existing products and be better optimized to perform
against the competition. The result will be a website that better reflects Honeyfig as a brand, facilitates
their clients shopping experience, and is optimized for better findability of products.
During the research phase, I aimed to understand how HoneyFig is currently being perceived by their
users, how they compare to other websites in their industry, and the needs and frustrations of their
users to solve for that. The objectives of my research plan were to:
Understand their clients needs in searching their website, their pain points, and priorities.
Discover if there are key features that websites within their industry have that HoneyFig is missing, and if
there are features they should add that would give them an edge on others.
Identify improvement areas focusing on branding, findability of products, and e-commerce UX best practices.
Understand what deters their clients from using their website, and what keeps them coming back, and
recommending to others.
To accomplish this, my research aimed to answer the following questions:
What are Honeyfig’s clients' motivations in using their website?
What are their pain points in navigating the site? What works well for them?
What does a satisfactory experience for their client look like?
Is their website easy to find for a customer who hasn’t heard of them before?
Is their branding, copy, and design consistent to what the user expects for their industry?
What is keeping clients from returning to use their website? What makes clients want to recommend them to
others?
What features are missing from their website that would enhance users' experience?
And test the following assumptions:
Users spend most of their time on the website browsing the products more than anything else.
The outdated look of the website is a deterrent to new potential clients.
Users are shopping there because there are few other options for natural hair products in Canada.
Most users will be part of the Black Natural Hair movement.
Methodology
My methodology consisted of several activities aimed at answering the above research questions.
Content Inventory
I started by completing a content inventory to understand the full range of HoneyFigs’ product offerings. I
marked any notes about page content or irregularities to be sure to incorporate different content elements in
the new site design.
After gaining a full understanding of their content and website structure, I completed a competitor analysis on
similar websites in the same industry to better understand their strengths and weaknesses. I aimed to discover
what features they offered that Honeyfig lacked, and consolidate my findings into direct action points.
I then contacted 5 users of the website to interview with the goal of understanding their experience, and gain
insight to my research questions based on their answers.
Through the various research methods employed, I determined key findings that would guide the
direction of the website redesign:
From the branding it is not clear what the site is for, what they offer and who the website is for.
Users need help finding the right products for them, and need a website that will facilitate the finding of
products in different ways that are useful to different types of users.
Users need indicators that the website is up-to-date and well managed.
Users need to be convinced that by shopping at Honeyfig they are buying the best products that they couldn’t
find from their local beauty store.
Users need education on the products before they select them.
Ideation/Definition
Once the key findings were defined, I moved into the definition and ideation phase to determine how
we might go about meeting the goals of the new website.
Goal - Feature Map
The goal feature map is aimed to take the goals that were defined from the research phase, and map them to
features that can be within the scope of the new website. This concretizes ideas, and puts them into tangible
actions that can be put into a design.
In order to understand how the site can be organized in a way that is optimized for the content on HoneyFig,
and is more logical to users I created an information architecture diagram.
Using the features defined in the goal feature map, and the information architecture, I identified the
key templates that would need to be created to build the website. Then, created mid fidelity mockups
to visualize how information will be organized on the templates, including key elements users
identified that will meet their needs.
Since the current brand look was a common pain point among users, it was critical to create a look
and feel that speaks to the users, and presents a modern, natural feel.
Moodboard
I started by creating a moodboard based on the core brand descriptors:
Modern/Trendy
Natural/Diverse/Sustainable
Trustworthy
The purpose is to identify elements that speak to each descriptor to get an idea of how to incorporate those
into the final design. This also served as a base for the UI kit, pulling colors, and fonts for the final
design.
If time permits I would like to perform further user testing on the new design to identify elements that
can be improved and iterated upon for continued expansion of the HoneyFig website and brand.
