BACKGROUND
Vintage Wireless London is a vintage electronics hire shop in located in Central London. It’s a small business with an owner named Bob who solely owns and runs the business. The company was established in 1974 and launched their website 15 years ago. Bob, the owner, struggles with technology and is intimidated by the thought of having to re-do his website or maintain it afterwards.
THE PROBLEM
The current website is hardly functional and needs to be completely redesigned, but the owner would like to maintain some of the original written content of the website. He'd like something that brings in customers but doesn't require regular updates or maintenance.
THE SOLUTION
RESEARCH
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Other vintage electronic shops look cluttered.
I started my research by comparing 5 existing websites of similar shops, noting their strengths and weaknesses. I identified key features that all these popular learning platforms have. I noticed some of these websites felt unnecessarily cluttered and complicated.
SURVEYS
Survey participants want to feel welcomed, not intimidated.
• 10 survey participants
• Remote online survey
• All participants have an interest in vintage electronics
• Participants ranged in age from 20 to over 65
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What do people expect to find on a vintage electronics shop website?
What makes people want to visit a vintage electronics shop?
What puts people off visiting a vintage electronics shop?
IDEATE
PERSONA
Who is the user?
I gathered my research findings and created a user persona for me to reference for the remainder of the project. This helped me think about the user's needs and not let my own preferences influence design decisions.
STORYBOARD
Illustrating the user journey.
In order to create the best user experience on the website, I thought about the user and his journey more holistically. How does he discover the website? What is he looking to achieve by going on the website? How are his needs met?
FEATURE SET
Prioritising potential solutions.
Keeping the user’s needs and journey in mind, I put together a feature set for the Vintage Wireless London website. I split the app’s potential features into ‘must- haves’, ‘nice to haves’, ‘surprising and delightful’ and ‘can come later’.
DESIGN
LO-FI WIREFRAMES
Taking pencil to paper.
I sketched out my low fidelity wireframes using pencil and paper. This helped me visualise the layout and figure out how all of the content will be arranged and organised. I kept in mind what my users said during my user research.
LOGO DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
Users wanted to see what the shop looked like, so I went to the shop to take some photos for the site.
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STYLE TILE
Creating the Vintage Wireless brand.
I created icons, took photos, and designed the logo. To sum up the brand, I put these elemants together in a style tile along with the colour palette, typeface and buttons.
WIREFRAMES
TEST
FINAL PROTOTYPE
REFLECTION
What would I do to improve this project?
If I had more time for this project, I would have spent more time on research. I sent out surveys to the target users of the site, but it would have been very insightful to have conducted interviews and had the time to more deeply understand their needs and pain points. This would have made my design decisions for this project more informed by the user, rather than the client (the shop owner).
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I think I could have spent more time on competitive analysis as well. I analysed and compared several competitor websites, however none of which had a great design. If I were to complete this project again, I would look for competitor website which successfully solved their problems with sophisticated design and a vintage aesthetic, in order to gain more ideas for my own.
