Overview
Redesign of SilverLake Wine Website
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My Role| UX Designer
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Research, Information Architecture, User Interviews, Wireframes, Prototypes, User Interface Design, UI Brand Guide, Usability Test
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2021
Silver Lake Wine has been around for 20+ years and have become a go to business for wine and liquor lovers and enthusiast. They were always only an in-store brand, but with the pandemic, they had to shift to an online platform. Not being familiar with the e-commerce side of things the journey has been trail and error. They do now have an online presence but it does not upkeep the same business flow they are use to. Is it due to not being a place people can simply come into their Creative Director was interested to see if a UX Designer would be able to solve this problem in a way they have never analyzed it before.
The Start of Research
Once I was given my brief by the Creative Director, I knew exactly the route I wanted to take within my research to make the best choices when approaching the problem they felt they faced.
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1. I wanted to be sure of where the problem actual existed my assumption was the website did not meet the needs of its user.
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2.Check out their direct and indirect competitors to see what they are doing.
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3. Speak to existing customers and their target customers who are not currently shopping with them to find pain points.
Heuristic Evalution
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Heuristic Evalution
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A screener survey was sent out to collect at least 5 participants who fall within the category of Silver Lake Wine's Target Customer. Someone who was between the ages of 25 -50, lived within a major city, a frequent purchaser of wine and spirits, a person who currently utilizes on online delivery service.
While waiting to gather the perfect participants who never shopped Silver Lake Wine before and schedule them for user interviews I conducted a Competitive and Comparative Analysis of the competitions websites as well as Heuristics with current customers on their current website.
No min.
Silver Lake Wine require a 4 bottle min but their competitors have no minimum
Header
Silver Lake Wine has no header on their website which is not the standard for a website
Menu
All competitors have a minimalist approach when it comes to their menu, Silver Lake Wine has their entire catalog listed in the center of the site
No Filters
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There is no way to simply filter your search. There is only a search bar
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Competitive Analysis
Heuristics
Findable
Even though things like the search bar work as expected. Users still struggled to find items. The way the menu is set up leaves customers feeling overwhelmed and uninformed
Clear
Items are listed that the average consumer is unaware of. Menu must be simplified in a way to engage customers and drive sales even on products a customer may not have originally been aware of
Credibilty
When adding items into your cart, the sites address (URL) changes it left users feeling unsure and skeptical of the sites authenticity, which kept customers from making a purchase. The site has to be hosted in one place that supports the business needs
Usable
New customers felt confused by some of the unknown items where as current customers have become aware of some of the more nice items Sliver Lake Wine is known for selling, niche items must be placed in a way new consumers can quickly learn what they are
Usability Test | Current Site
SCENARIO
You are on your way to dinner with a few friends that are in your pandemic “bubble” at their home. You're out of wine at home so you would like to have some delivered to their house since you didn’t have time to get any.
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TASK
Go to silverlakewine.com. Find one type of red organic wine to add to your car and one type of white organic wine to add to your cart. Add the minimum qty in any combination to be able to qualify for free delivery.
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users feel delivery details, online order details, pickup, location and contact information are important information to see immediately to be aware of what is possible or not before making a purchase
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Users expect to be provided details of products, in depth information overall about delivery and locations items can be purchased if not available to them to order, ordering online, and to be able to figure things out fairly quickly because shopping online should be simple as an alternative to in person shopping
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users feel more comfortable browsing for purchases like this on a desktop having the option for an app is only great when you know what you want and wines sometimes you want to read up on them since you can't taste it online
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Overall users want an easy, smooth and simple experience on a clean inviting site. They feel simplicity is a great factor when navigating on a site made for making online purchases because online purchases are meant to be convenient not complex.
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Users seem to order either weekly or monthly mainly for social reasons or special occasions
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Users are not into the idea of subscription plans for things like wine they feel it is not needed for the everyday customer some users felt providing subscriptions options is still a good idea for the use of businesses or even the few people who do buy more often than others
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Silver Lake Wine's competitors have easy sites with no learning curves, provide extensive information about their products in an easy to use way and have many delivery options and the site is set up for quick easy use, these reasons are why users have used them in the past
INSIGHTS FROM TARGET USERS
IDEATION | SKETCHES
I explored sites like Drizly, Mini Bar, and UberEats for quantitative ideas and then compared those ideas to other local shops to refine some of my ideas to more qualitative ones
MID-FIDELITY DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
UI Clarification
The current site was utilizing 7 different fonts so I proposed two that fit best and were easy to read and are accessible across multiple platforms. I went ahead and identified the colors being used and fine tuned the shades to compliment each other. This way if any changes need to be made people are using the exact shade and not guessing to maintain consistency.
New Logo
PROPOSED VISUAL DESIGN
FOOTER ITERATION
added a way to keep up with customers and store a contacts within their database
moved location underneath the contact information oppose to having the email listed out I added an icon that can be used as a link, less work for the customer
PROTOTYPE | LAST ROUND OF TESTING
Hi-Fi | FINDINGS
Before submitting my final visual proposal to the companies Creative Director for implementation, I conducted one more round of Usability Testing on past customers of the company, to see if I solved the main pain point their loyal customers faced, which was feeling overwhelmed when attempting to browse the inventory which left them to shop other sites for a seamless experience.
"This feels familiar in a good way"
" I prefer this menu where I can explore things that I had no clue were whiskey it makes me want to check out every option and browse a bit unlike before were I was confused and it is not like being in a store where I can ask for help so I prefer this 100%"
" I think the one thing I would change is the photos, I love this place and they are so popular the photos used makes them seem not legit and a bit lazy"
" This site seems up to date and a whole lot simpler than what they have going on right now"
OUTCOME
Since covid there has been a 38% decrease in expected revenue and that number grows weekly, which is a loss no company wants to experience. Through research of speaking with existing customers we quickly learned the website just was not user friendly and no amount of loyalty kept a bulk of customers from shopping their favorite Wine shop.
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100% of the participants from the final usability test were able to complete the task of shopping a bottle of "Woody Creek Rye" whiskey in less than 10 seconds. Compared to their current site where 50% of participants did not complete the task while the other half took an abnormal amount of time to complete the simple task, because they could not find the bottle.
The new design quickly solved this issue, and will more than likely boost sales for the business.
Next Steps
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Implement new website design, make needed iterations if needed by their Tech team.
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Test new site with another selection of users
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Propose new iterations in necessary
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Elevate site design once new user flow and functionality proves to meet accessibility and business needs
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Propose taking professional images on inventory
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