In the Practicum in Pro Web Design course at UCSD, we were asked to find a real client and redesign/create their website. Our client was a local photographer in the San Diego area who specializes in nature and portrait shots.
Our client was without a website and needed a way to sell both his nature prints and his graduation photoshoots.
Our objective was to create a simple experience where users could purchase different sized nature prints as well as book appointments with the photographer for thier graduation pictures.
I was responsible for all aspects of the project and focused on the mobile design and prototype.
We created a unique set of questions and categorized the users by their purchase frequency and type of service. We interviewed Powers Photography’s past customers and found several patterns which helped us create our personas, a culmination of the types of users that would use this website.
A majority of the clients customers were looking for graduation pictures and professional portraits, rather than nature prints. They wanted a quick and structured way to set up the photoshoots.
In order to understand how we would enter Powers Photography into this market, we needed to analyze the competitors. We looked at local photographers who specialized in portrait photoshoots as those who specialized in nature prints. By looking at these, we gained inspiration on both mobile and desktop layouts of such websites. The challenge we faced here was that these sites all only specialized in either portrait photoshoots or nature prints, not both. We needed to come up with a design that would cater to both aspects of Powers Photography’s business.
After summarizing the information from our user interviews and competitive analysis, it was time to sketch different solutions to meet both the business and users needs.
We created a mood board and a style guideline to capture the clients brand, and the beachy theme of San Diego.
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With our site architecture planned out, we created a low fidelity mockup with screens to cover all scenarios.
We then did another round of user testing, with specific test scenarios to gauge the efficiency of our site architecture. We discovered that some users were confused by our “Photoshoots” tab. We changed this heading to “Packages” in order to better encompass what our client was offering. Our client wanted to showcase his nature shots on the home page, however, through our testing, we discovered that this increased the time and difficulty of navigating to our clients services. We instead made it more clear what our client was selling and incorporated links to both his “Prints” and “Packages” tab.
• Browse portraits
• Learn about the photographer and setup a photoshoot
• Order a print
• Was confused by our “Photoshoots” tab; wasn't sure if that included a graduation shoot.
• Couldn't find button on homepage to the prints page.
We discovered that some users were confused by our “Photoshoots” tab. We changed this heading to “Packages” in order to better encompass what our client was offering. Our client wanted to showcase his nature shots on the home page, however, through our testing, we discovered that this increased the time and difficulty of navigating to our clients services. We instead made it more clear what our client was selling and incorporated links to both his “Prints” and “Packages” tab.
After our tweaks to the sutes architecture, we created our final prototype. We believe we achieved a good balance between what our client was looking for and an efficient and easy to use site.
- User research is a must in order to create solutions, and it can also aid in developing realistic business goals.
- Business goals are often the main driving force of the design. The creativity comes from addressing them in the best way possible.
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