did203a experience design 1assessment 1

gerard didier janson00126004t

kicks.com.au

Kicks.com.au is an online store where sneakerheads (customers) can purchase the latest sneakers coming from all over the world in the one place. The target market being between the ages of 15 years to 45 years old. These ages may vary depending on the parents of those under the ages of 15 years old who my choose to purchase sneakers for their children and the activity level of those above 45 years of age.

The aim of the site is to carry all types of sneakers from across various popular sports and training disciplines in order to attract more customers and build a following amongst athletes and other sneaker purchasers. Athletes should be able to purchase necessary equipment from one place as opposed to searching the internet for multiple websites.

Kicks will provide the latest shoes at lower than prices than of those sold in-stores as it will not have the overheads of an actual fixed location. The only real obstacle, as with any online retailer, will be currency exchange rates and shipping costs depending on where the customer is purchasing from. To try to aid with shipping costs, Kicks will offer “free shipping” days every so often where customers who purchase over a certain amount, will have their shipping costs waived, this will include overseas delivery.

As a site that caters to customers who love sneakers, the design and layout of the site will be “hip” and “fresh” as well as being simple to navigate. Animations will be kept to a minimum and used only to enhance the feel and touch of the site. Kicks will speak in common terminology used by it’s customers to help draw in users and make it fun for the user to utilize the site more regularly.

executive summary:kicks.com.au

raw data - card sort - personas

raw data:user survey

raw data:user research summary

As estimated, our researched showed that our target market was fairly evenly spread between men and women with ages ranging from 15 years to 45 years old. The majority coming from users between the ages of 25 to 35 years old. This shows that online sneaker retailers should build their sites with 25 to 35 year old in mind as this is their main range of customers. So images and language used should always fit this demographic.

Out of these, almost 71% of people surveyed said they purchase sneakers online and those who did not preferred to physically try the shoes on for themselves as they assume that sizes may vary and are scared that their order will not fit. They also found returning items simpler by purchasing in-store. Having an easy return policy and a guarantee on sizes may attract those who don’t purchase online to try it.

Of those who did purchase sneakers online, 25% did so at least twice a year while 29% sourced sneakers online only when they needed a new pair.

A staggering 59% of those surveyed said they preferred to shop from multiple sites to find the sneakers they were after at the best price possible as opposed to having one particular go-to online retailer. Online retailers should therefore continuously search online and match or beat the cheaper prices they find.

5 out of 7 people enjoyed shopping online because of the sites ease of use and clear images and layouts while the other 2 said prices were their main reason for doing so. This tells us that intensive user experience research is vital to gaining customer loyalty and attracting new customers.

card sort:navigation results

Based on some card sorting activities, most of the users advised that the “Newsletter” should not be a menu on it’s own but rather a sub-menu nested within the “Contact us” menu. This is the main change that was made to my original thinking about the Information Architecture structure.

It was also noted that the “Blurb” menu should be nested inside the “About” menu while the “Blog” should be a stand-alone menu as people associated this with latest news about activities and information. They all saw “Blog” as being the ‘alive and always’ evolving part of a website.

card sort personas:Aniele Malie

personality

bio motivation

age

sex

occupation

status

location

hobbies

31

female

dietitian

married

sydney

shopping, movies & music

organised

protective

hard working

fun

Aniele Malie is a hardworking, married mum of a baby boy. Her day time job as a dietitian has her constantly thinking systematically so when she gets home, she wants to relax ans take care of all her other duties as a mum. She, therefore, rarely has time to go out shopping, so she prefers to shop online.

Her main sneaker purchases are for her young son. She likes him to be trendy and have all the nice things she didn’t have growing up.

aniele malie

“My son’s wellbeing and happiness are my main concerns. If I get to do a little shopping while at it, then great.”

introvert extrovert

patient not patient

understanding judgemental

careful impulsive

price

convenience

speed / ease of use

loyalties / rewards

great customer service

easy return policy

goals - Ease of use: find items fast - Security: safe and secure shopping experience - Price: Find the latest sneakers cheap

frustrations - Website that are hard to navigate - Not having help immediately on a site - Find a better price elsewhere after making purchase

personality

bio motivation

age

sex

occupation

status

location

hobbies

37

male

psycologist

married

sydney

travelling, food & music

free spirit

ourgoing

caring

fun

Hugo Madrid is talented, outspoken and extremely confident married father of two. His job as a psychologist sees him interacting with people all day long.

He releases the stress of work and family obligations by exercising and partying with his many friends.

Hugo is the life of the party and knows it. He therefore always has to present well and look his very best.

hugo madrid

“If my life were to be made into a movie, I’d insist on playing myself no matter how old I got.”

price

convenience

speed / ease of use

loyalties / rewards

great customer service

easy return policy

goals - Finding the latest & trendiest items - Being the only one with the latest sneakers or clothes - Leaving an impression on people

frustrations - Not finding what he is looking for easily - Outdated websites - Not being able to return an unsatisfactory item

introvert extrovert

patient not patient

understanding judgemental

careful impulsive

card sort personas:hugo madrid

personality

bio motivation

age

sex

occupation

status

location

hobbies

22

male

basketball player

single

melbourne

sport, fitness & clothes

fit

hard working

confident

fun

Brett Jackson is a young up and coming basketball player who could one day find himself in the NBL (National Basketball League) or playing overseas.

His job as a fitness instructor pays the bills while he concentrates on his basketball career.

Brett’s need for all the latest sneakers is as much for basketball as it is a passion of his to college sneakers.

brett jackson

“Sports and fitness are the only things that matter. A healthy body means a healthy everything else.”

price

convenience

speed / ease of use

loyalties / rewards

great customer service

easy return policy

goals - To play basketball professionally and look good doing it - Collecting as many sneakers as possible - Buying sneakers online that are not available in Australia

frustrations - Prices of shipping for items bought online - Difficult return policies and procedures - No customer service when he needs it

introvert extrovert

patient not patient

understanding judgemental

careful impulsive

card sort personas:brett jackson

ia & competitor analysis

HOM

ESHOP

ABOUT

ACCOUNT

CONTACT

NEWSLETTER enter email address sumbit

live chat

email

phone phone number & business hours

name / email address /query

sumbit

sign up

existing member

facebook login username & password link

name, email, address, password & phone

blurb about company, awards & products images & videos

women

men

boys

girls

sportnetball

basketball

soccer

rugby

brands

shoes

clothing

jordan

nike

adidas

reebok

images

remove

check out

sumbitusername & password / forgot

login

see product

add to cart

billing info

shipping method

payment

cancel paypal credit card

review order

confirm order

latest releases & news images & videosblog

information architecture

footlocker.com

sneakerhead.com

sneakersnstuff.com

flightclub.com

key

website voice

active

graphical

stylish

fun

target market

women

kids

athletes

men

It was found that three of the four sites attempted to inject some fun into their their overall look, some more successfully than offers.

Although they are all sneaker providers, only Footlocker.com seemed to really market itself toward active customers, this is reflected if the images on their site.

Three out of four again applied clean, professional images to promote their products while Flightclub.com focused solely of providing images of the sneakers in a generic fashion.

Again, only Flighclub.com failed to impress in the style department. Their site lacked that professional, hip and stylish feel that young sneaker buyers love.

All of the competitor sites targeted both men and women equally.

Kids shoes are also sold but are not as heavily visible on the site. To access kids products, the user has to find the “kids” menu in the sub-menus.

While Footlocker.com and Flightclub.com pushes more towards basketball players, the other two sites aim to attract trendy young men and women with their stylish and casual sneakers.

Based on design, the target ages range from around 15yr to 45yr olds who are physically active or just love to stay trendy and stylish.

price range

$101 - $300

$301 - $500

> $501

< $100

It was interesting to see that while all of the sites obviously had sneakers ranging from under USD100 all the way upto USD400, Footlocker.com, being the nicest and professionally designed website that kept it’s prices lower than expected.

The two least attractive websites have prices ranging from under USD100 all the way to above USD501.

Sneakersnstuff.com capped it’s pricing at just under USD700 while Flightclub.com went all the way up to an astounding USD10,000.

product info

size

shipping info

description

Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com both provided comprehensive descriptions of the selected product while the other two sites and very minimal decription.

Each site listed sizes in in different country codes, such as US and UK sizes.

All apart from Flightclub.com provided adequate shipping and return information.

Surprisingly, only Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com provided customer reviews. The other two sites did not display tihs information at all.

reviews

competitor analysis: sneaker websites[ ]competitor analysis:sneaker websites

footlocker.com

sneakerhead.com

sneakersnstuff.com

flightclub.com

key

product range

sports shoes

various sports

clothing

casual shoes

navigation

categories

search

cart

login

While all of the sites sell both sports and casual sneakers, Footlocker.com is the only site that focused most of it’s attention on backetball and running shoes as well as some casual wear sneakers.

Like Footlocker, the other 3 sites also aimed more towards basketball and casual shoes as these are what younger markets tend to wear. This lines itself well with young hip-hop culture.

All of the sites have clothing on offer but these are not their main revenue source so not as much attention is paid to this category.

Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com have really put thought into UX in their overall navigation design as menu items for these two are layed-out into categories of men, women, kids, sports and even shoe sizes. The other two sites are not as effective in their ease-of-use, categories and menus are not animated and are a little clunky.

Three of the sites have search features which auto populate results. Flightclub.com does not. Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com make it even simpler for users with images of products populating in a grid as the user types.

Logins and shopping carts on all sites show when logged-in and when items are added to cart.

payment options

paypal

amex

credit card

All four of the competitor websites accept multiple types of payment. Sneakersnstuff.com being the only not accepting ‘other’ payment types.

All major credit cards, including American Express (all sites being from the US), are accepted as well as PayPal.

Unlike sites in Australia, they also accept ‘other’ types of payments such as Diners Club, GiroPay and Discover among others.

The ability and willingness to accept all of these different types of payments help these sites capture as many customers as possible.

customer support

telephone

live chat

email

Customer service is a big part of any e-commerce website as it deals with money and people on a daily basis.

While all of the sites had some type of customer service application, Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com really pushed the envelope here. Users are able to get in touch with them in multiple ways, including live-chat, which as a user is really useful.

Phone support is also provided on these two sites alone, and this helps users trust in a company.

Social media platforms help visibility and surprisingly, Flightclub.com has quite a few social media platforms which users can interact with.

social

competitor analysis: sneaker websites[ ]

other

competitor analysis:sneaker websites

footlocker.com

sneakerhead.com

sneakersnstuff.com

flightclub.com

key

design

ease of use

system status

user language

minimal / modern

weaknesses

Overall design including language helps users navigate with more fluidity. Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com invested a lot into their UX.

They’re both minimal / modern in their look and feel which helps highlight their products more effectively and enables users to make informed decisions faster.

Users are informed at all times as login, shopping cart and search features show status feedback.

Language used on both these sites were designed to relate to the target audience. Nothing was out of place linguistically.

The other two sites have not put in as much thought into these disciplines.

usability

checkout

login

cart

Usability on all four sites was adequate, but again Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com were easier to user.

Adding and removing items from all shopping carts were simple.

Checking out was also easy as all sites offered ‘guest’ checkout, there no registering was required.

Logging in or registering was simple but surprisingly, only Flightclub.com offered a facebook sign-in. The other three sites asked user to register and create an account.

Footlocker.com and Sneakerhead.com made contacting them simple with the live-chat feature. The other two sites required the user complete long forms and wait for a response.

strengthsFootlocker excelled in it’s ease of use and attention to user experience and interactivity. Also, it’s design worked well for it’s intended audience. Product descriptions, user reviews, search feature as well as live chat made the overall shopping experience great.

competitor analysis: sneaker websites[ ]Does not focus on casual shoes and I believe this is a big market that they are actively persuing. They could also focus more on clothing sales.

Sneakhead’s, like Footlocker, ease of use and design made it stand out from the it’s competition. The site and it’s use of simple, clean animation made it very attractive and easy to use. Product descriptions, user reviews, search feature as well as live chat made the overall shopping experience great.

Lack of sports sneakers is a letdown. I felt that the site didn’t ‘speak’ to it’s audience as well as it could have. It’s lack of social media presence also could be improved.

sneakerhead.com

Sneakersnstuff overall design is not too bad at first sight. Clean minimal interface which have adequate status feedback for users. Shopping experience was OK.

Lack of contact choices. Also, prices on this site were out of reach for most users and the lack of user reviews or product description made spending this much laughable.

contact us

Flightclub offered a facebook login so users did not have to create a new account.

Prices were too high for a site that didn’t offer much in the way of user reviews or product description. Prices failed to meet the requirements of their audience. Contact choices were minimal.

flightclub.com

sneakersnstuff.com

footlocker.com

competitor analysis:sneaker websites

user flows

User flows:add to cartselect item

add tocart?

logged in?log in or register

confirm paymentdetails

add payment details

confirm addressenter address

confirm purchasesubmit

cancel order

N Y Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

N

N

N

N

N

continuebrowsing?

Y

checkout?

N

log in orregister

log in register?

enterusername and

password

log in

forgot usernameor password

request newpassword via email

retrieve detailsfrom email address

Y

N

enter name / address / password / phone

facebook log in

enter usernameand password

link account

N

Y

cancel

cancel

User flows:log in or register

check out

confirmitems?

N Y

Y

N

N

removeitems

N log in?

register? enter name / address /password / phone

facebook log in

enter usernameand password

link account

N

Y

cancel

log in

Y

enterusername and

password

forgot usernameor password

request newpassword via email

retrieve detailsfrom email address

cancel confirm paymentdetails

add payment details

confirm addressenter address

confirm purchase

Y

Y

Y

N

N

N

cancel

sumbit

select items to remove

Y

additems

Y

select items

add to cart

cancel

continue browsing

N

User flows:check out

wireframes

thank you