POP
Expanding the Shopping Experience for a Pottery Studio
About:
POP is a pottery studio in the middle of Kreuzberg, Berlin. Their biggest offer is a large space where potters can improve their skills and just spend some time relaxing.
Challenge:
POP’s website is inconsistent, caotic and it's hard to find their service in their website.
Impact:
We introduced a centralized e-commerce platform for local potters to showcase and sell their work, improved site navigation for better readability, and streamlined booking for classes, kiln services, and online purchases.
Type
E-Commerce
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Team
4 UX Designer
Deliverables
UX Design, Visual Design, Brand Identity, Prototype
Understanding the context
We started our journey with a secondary research about the pottery market, we discovered that the demand for pottery expanded in the last year. This growth is attributed to various factors: increased interest, appreciation for handmade items, demand for unique and personalized home decor, pottery as a hobby.
As a beginner potter myself, it was hard to separate what my need as users were with the needs I had as a designer, but having a good overview and knowledge about pottery myself, speeded up the research and the analysis because I knew where to find the data, without struggling too much.
Insight from the interview
✦ Being part of a pottery studio gave me direct access to the target audience.
✦ I analyzed their data and competitors, allowing me to identify key problems and pain points.
Narrowing down our problem
Website Accessibility & Clarity
✦ The website design is chaotic and lacks a clear structure.
✦ Poor color contrast and typography make navigation difficult.
✦ Accessibility is not prioritized, affecting readability and user experience.
Limited E-Commerce Integration
✦ They want to create their e-commerce by integrating it to the community space where local potters can showcase and sell their work.
✦ Currently, there is no centralized system to support this vision.
Scattered Booking & Offer System
Studio services are spread across multiple platforms, making it confusing for customers.
✦ Classes → Booked via Eversport.
✦ Kiln Services → Only available in person.
✦ Commerce → Limited to in-person purchases.
The Problem
The pottery studio’s website lacks clear structure and accessibility, making navigation difficult.
A fragmented booking system and limited e-commerce integration create a disjointed user experience, making it harder for customers to find and book services or purchase products online.
How might we...
How might we create a more structured and accessible website to improve navigation and readability for all users?
How might we integrate a centralized e-commerce platform that allows local potters to showcase and sell their work?
How might we streamline the booking and service discovery process to make it easier for customers to access classes, kiln services, and online purchases in one place?
Low-fi Wireframe
We began by creating low-fi wireframes to quickly visualize our flow and how we wanted to present our process in the user interface.
We then translated these elements into mid-fi prototypes and conducted quick usability tests with users to gather feedback and improve clarity.
Some of the feedback we received was related to certain functions:
✦ How to integrate the background picture with text clear on the homepage.
✦ We also identified potential UI problems that could create issues with clarity and usability.
The visual language
We visually translated our pottery studio philosophy into a moodboard.
Based on the moodboard, we defined our color palette, applied the 60–30–10 proportion rule, and identified which colors would have a bigger impact on our website. This allowed us to achieve consistency in our user interface.
The moodboard helped us to keep the style and aesthetic consistent and on track with a client's goals and expectations.
Final design before iteration
After two weeks of intensive design, we arrived at our final wireframe. This stage emphasized the crucial balance between the client's requirements and the user's needs, a lesson learned through thorough research.
Subsequently, I opted for an iterative approach to identify potential improvements and refine the design through user testing.
For instance, I tackled issues on the homepage where the hierarchy and button placements were challenging to understans. To address these concerns, I focused on improving padding and margins for a more cohesive design. Additionally, readability was inconsistent and sometimes compromised by font size.
This iterative process aimed to fine-tune these aspects.
Iteration
By iteratively working on the product, I enhanced the usability and graphic balance of the homepage. Through a series of user tests, I improved the clarity by reorganizing the sections.
I removed the carousel at the beginning because landscape images don’t perform well on mobile devices. Instead, I replaced the images with an illustration of the space. This illustration conveys the studio atmosphere—bright, colorful, and happy.
The top bar was redesigned, with buttons now arranged in the upper right and the logo consistently positioned in the upper left. Additionally, I refined the UX writing and button hierarchy, ensuring they are consistently placed at the bottom and accompanied by clear descriptions.
Can we have more features?
I undertook the development of this page as a personal project, adding it to the website to improve the lack of aesthetic cohesion in this particular page.
To enhance its visual appeal, I created custom illustrated cards and I created a better hierarchy that integrate with the rest of the design.
Outcomes & learning
✦ The improved design helped the studio refine its offerings and strengthen its position in the market. The new interface also contributed to increased business and received positive feedback from the studio users.
✦ We focused on creating a more concise homepage that guides users through the experience without increasing cognitive load. This ensures that they can easily find the sections they need without feeling overwhelmed.
✦ If I had more time, I would have measured the conversion rate of the checkout process and the drop-off rate during the booking and the payment. Analyzing these metrics would have helped ensure that customers complete their purchases, potentially leading to increased revenue.
All in all I am a happy designer and I hope I will have more chance to tackle more project like that.
