Search redesign for Flower Chimp
A suggestion to improve search
This project is a redesign of Flower Chimp, to improve search. Flower Chimp is an online flower delivery store. The filtering suggestion I have made is based on the latest research findings on UX design and reviews from Flower Chimp customers on the website and from Google reviews.
Objectives
With a focus on improving search, the objective is to create a responsive ecommerce website that:
- Helps the user grasp what is the concept behind Flower Chimp on the landing page
- Showcases the most popular flowers
- Encourage the user to search, compare, chose flowers quickly
- Make search as intuitive and simple as possible
Timeline
The project was completed in 2 weeks.
Platform
The website was designed to adapt to a desktop screen.
Target audience
User persona: Bill, 31 wants to surprise his wife with flowers for her birthday. He want to find the perfect flowers, with sunflowers (her favorite flowers), chocolates and a balloon. He wants to be able to save his favorite flowers to compare them, before picking one. A fast way to search and save, is thus, preferred.
References
The target audience was developed based on reviews on Flower Chimp through their website and Google Maps. Most reviews related to the current web design are positive, yet with a few desired changes: tracking of order could be improved, the website could look more inviting, since the pictures looked “arbitrary”. Indeed, users come to the website, try to imagine if the flowers match with the occasion and thus, it is important to have a cheerful design that matches with the special occasions user come to buy flowers ( birthday, wedding, baby shower…). It is bared in mind however, that Flower Chimp also caters to more saddening occasions such as funerals and apologies. Therefore, we want a discreet but warm design.
As a major enhancement to the current website, I have decided to find a way to make search more efficient. I have looked into various sources to find best practices on filtering and searching in ecommerce.
Deliverables
The current filters on Flower Chimp are overlapping categories: on the same level of hierarchy you can choose between birthday, Christmas and occasions. Some categories can be improved: If a certain budget is selected, then flowers for all occasions are shown to the user. It would be more relevant for the user to filter for a specific occasion and budget. To overcome this problem, Flower Chimp currently preset to the user three search tools which can be quickly confusing (top navigation bar, a search engine and a “Quick flower finder” search engine).
To simplify search and make it more visual (after all, users are looking for beautiful flowers), I have decided to make the search only by occasion, and then present a horizontal bar of relevant filters per occasion for the user to drill down search. Best practices recommend a horizontal filtering system if there are not too many filters to chose from (Cuhna, 2020; Holst, 2020).
On the final prototype of the landing page, I have decided to show visually different occasions the user may be interested in, to help her/him start her search. Once they chose an occasion, they can make more refined filtering with the horizontal bar or switch occasions with an improved quick flower finder.
An initial idea of showcasing occasions was implemented because I thought it was beautiful and interactive (see below), but it did not allow to represent occasions clearly. Therefore, I have used it in a less crucial section, to list blog posts:
Hope you have enjoyed this article, please make sure to have a look on my thought-process on other projects: An app idea for Travelog and A redesign of Men’s Journal.
Hi, I’m Gwenn Le Pechoux, a Product Designer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Here are some of my projects through my personal portfolio. And let’s connect on LinkedIn!
References
Cuhna, L. (2020). How to craft a kickass filtering UX. Retrieved 17 December 2020, from https://uxdesign.cc/crafting-a-kickass-filtering-ux-beea1798d64b
Holst, C. (2020). Display “Applied Filters” in an Overview (32% Don’t) — Articles — Baymard Institute. Retrieved 17 December 2020, from https://baymard.com/blog/how-to-design-applied-filters
