Wada and Co. is an online fashion store that promotes and supports Croatian designers.

Project overview

A client with Croatian roots who has been living and working in the Netherlands for many years, decided to follow her dream and create an e-commerce platform that will promote Croatia and its designers and sell Croatian fashion designs all over Europe. Over the platform she will be offering sustainable products of highest quality and beauty.

She wanted to use Shopify to create her online fashion store.

I worked on this project as a UX designer and a web designer (I've created an online store in Shopify), but sometimes my role also included project and data management.

Challenges

The client thought that she already knew who her user persona was and she didn't want to do the research at first. Eventually, I was able to explain to her the importance of user research and she agreed that we could continue with the research.

To create an online store, the client wanted to use Shopify and one of its free pre-defined templates. Because of the pre-defined template, we were limited with the design of the online store.

When it comes to the users of the online fashion stores, their main frustrations are related to poor platform navigation, unintuitive platforms with filters that are difficult to use, and poor quality images with unclear product information and descriptions.

Market Research

In order to better understand the target group, I conducted a market research and analyzed 7 online fashion stores (Wolf & Badger, Net a Porter, Yoox, Iconic, Farfetch, The Outnet, Lyst) that are Wada's competitors. The insights gathered from the competitive analysis were also used in the creation of the MVP matrix.

User Research - Survey

The survey was conducted using Google Forms in order to learn about the needs and the frustrations of the users of online fashion stores. The goal was to find out what are their experiences with online fashion stores, including their preferences and needs when it comes to online fashion stores and fashion design, and the ease of online shopping.

The information obtained from the survey was grouped by categories. Those information was used to create the User Persona.

Information Architecture

The first drafts of the IA were created combining information gathered from the competitor analysis and the feature analysis. Through testing, I came to the final version of the IA.

Visual Design

There was no need to create the wireframes, since the client wanted to use a pre-defined template to create the online store.

The client already had a logo, the font and the colors defined.

I created a mood board that reflects the style and the visual direction of the online store. The focus was on simplicity, elegance, and classiness.

Online store development

After the UX part of the project was completed, I started working on the development of the online store using the template chosen by the client. At the client's request, the online store was created in Shopify.

The copy and the images were provided by the client.

Visit Wadaandco.com online fashion store →

Conclusion

After the project ended, the client continued to update the site herself. She made some changes to the main navigation and to the home page.

This case study highlights my ability to manage different roles in one single project at the same time. It also demonstrates my skills in user experience, adaptability to change and quick learning, as well as the ability to explain the importance of the user research.