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Shopping furniture online can be very time consuming and daunting. With too much of a choice and too many items to scroll through, it can be difficult to stay motivated. You may even give up on your virtual shopping tour. This is where this concept comes into play. The Minimalist is a fictional project born out of a deep passion for minimal interior design. Operating as an online store, it provides contemporary furniture and inspiration for the minimalist lovers. With a bespoke and transparent concept, it creates an inviting space for users to feel supported as they are searching for new furniture and interior ideas. This case study also includes branding that is reminiscent of the company and enhances interactivity to promote usability and increase sales.
The Minimalist story begins with a bit of research into the market seeing what treasure hunt type websites already existed. After I identified Made and Westwing as two direct competitors, I proceeded to do a usability analysis to help create a benchmark for how my website could compete.
Next, I conducted qualitative interviews. After that, I went through my notes I have taken to see where participants aligned and/or provided unique insights. The outcome shaped my personas, Ellie and Michael. These two personas are focusing on two different but relevant areas: saving time and seeking inspiration.
I chose to focus on Ellie for the user flows since she is a frequent online shopper and has a higher potential when it comes to customer loyalty. The Minimalist’s goal is to keep both design and flow as minimal and transparent as possible to eliminate any potential distractions. So getting the user flow of interactions right from the start was very important.
The Minimalist’s site map went through two iterations. As I progressed through the project, it became apparent that some of the initial features I had in mind would only overcomplicate things. Since The Minimalist is meant to be simple so that it doesn’t get in the way of the user’s experience, I came up with the current site map.
Working from my information architecture, pen and paper were used to sketch out the first screens of The Minimalist. They were designed to be simple and easily navigable. So many ideas were circulated in creating these minimal designs.
Taking inspiration from my Pinterest mood board, I built the style guide pulling the minimal colors and personality from it to create the overall feel of the Minimalist. The inclusion of a cool-toned nude shade brings a slightly warm vibe to it, whilst being a perfect contrast with black and a lighter shade of grey. To support the overall minimal look and feel of the Minimalist, it became vital to work with sans-serif typefaces. In total, I chose two different typefaces, one for the logo and one for the website’s text. This way the logo would stand out better.
The careful consideration of whitespace and the inclusion of organic shapes became vital to the overall interface design. The oval shapes can be considered as sort of a window that allows the user to take a brief look into a room. Based on their first impression, they can then decide whether or not they would like to seek more details of that specific room. The so-called "shop by room" function is very user-friendly as it enables the user to quickly navigate through the options available. This product has already been turned into a clickable prototype that could be used as a MVP for the first phase of user testing. Given the fact that over 70% of users shop on their smartphones nowadays, I created the mobile designs first.
