Caseology - Adding Variety & Fun To E-Commerce Shopping For Smartphone Accessories

Caseology is an e-commerce smartphone accessories store with products among the top 10 on Amazon. For this project, I established Caseology's first pattern library - reducing design inconsistencies and web development inefficiencies. I helped create and direct the content strategy. We achieved a 250% increase in conversions and a 60% reduction in homepage abandonment after a site redesign that provided a seamless and delightful buying experience.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
Nov '17 - Feb '18
Core Responsibilities
UX/UI Design, Content Strategy Research, Product Management

About

Caseology is an online smartphone accessories store

One of the top 10 sellers in the Amazon marketplacaims to influence self-expression and empower users through fashion and reliable protection. I was tasked to increase the sales conversion rate for their E-commerce storefront.* Caseology has rebranded and changed their designs since early 2017. Some of the UX still remains.

Problem

A significant percentage of users abandon the homepage, ultimately affecting our sales conversions. We're unsure why this is happening.

The homepage was experiencing a high number of drop-offs, and this was especially critical because this was the point of entry into our site. The UX team and I were tasked to increase our overall sales conversion, and we prioritized the homepage as the first step.

Homepage dropoff rate: X%
Product Detail Page: Low
Add-to-Cart Rate
: Low
Percentage Reached Checkout: Low
Sales Conversion Rate: Less than X%

Research

The e-commerce experience for Caseology is stale, not trustworthy, and lacks a variety of products on display

The UX team and I observed direct and organic search trends in addition to observing our customer channels. We also did a brief audit of our homepage to identify some key issues correlated with the metrics. These observations below guided our research.

- Lack of variety for bestsellers (only for iPhone 7 users but served different smartphones).
- Large amounts of scrolling makes it difficult to learn more
- Lack of credibility due to absence of reviews or testimonials
- Repetitive content

Based on a survey with 200 customers, we learned that showing variety is most critical to the shopping experience

We received responses from about 200 customers, and aggregated the data to determine customer pain points. Below are some of the highlights:

What's stopping you from looking at our phone cases?: “Can't find the right style, lack of reviews, lack of brand credibility”.
For the homepage, what would have made your experience better?: “More products showcased on the homepage without having to click on separate sections”.
What kind of phone cases are you looking for?: “Men's styles, “Fashion styles, Women's styles.

Prospective smartphone accessories customers on Caseology abandon the shopping experience due to a lack of accessible products, credibility, and variety

We received responses from about 200 customers, and aggregated the data to determine customer pain points. Below are some of the highlights:

Accessibility: Serving iPhone 7 users only makes different users feel that the products do not cater to them.
Credibility: Users need to feel secure that the product they purchase will protect their $800+ smartphones.
Variety: Lack of variety makes it difficult for users to find products that they would want to purchase.

Goals

Provide a fun shopping experience that provides more variety to increase sales

By making the homepage more engaging and attractive to our wide variety of users, users will be led to the product and then to checkout. Altogether, this strategy is focused on capturing new users and converting them to customers, thus driving sales. Bringing in the user research, the design team and I based our design framework off the following principles:

- Versatility: Smartphone shoppers should be able to find a variety of products that suit their respective smartphones and personalities.
- Low effort to explore: Users should not have to click into so many pages to explore a variety of products.
Drive users to checkout: Minimize the amount of clicks it takes for users to reach checkout. This will reduce friction and encourage purchases.

Creating variety without being overwhelming

Our goal was to add variety to entice a wide array of users. Below are some ideas we explored:

- Military-grade section: Conveyed the reliability of our products but was confusing to our customers.
- Device and color carousel: We wanted to add a personal touch while increasing user convenience with the dropdown and color filters.
- Testimonial section We designed this to create more trust with our users.
- Device selection grid: This exploration focused on catering to types of users rather than offering product variety for a more straightforward experience.

Content Strategy

After analyzing our demographic trends, in which we served 50/50 men and women, we worked with photographers and wrote UX copy for the redesigned website

Strategy was focused on catering to our 50/50 demographics for men and women. We looked through Amazon reviews to understand how users were interpreting our products, in which many considered the style as "minimalist" or "sleek". With this research, we worked with the photographers to shoot the following content below and also collaborated with the videographer to create a banner video.

Design System

Establishing Caseology's first-ever design system

Solution

A fun and engaging e-commerce shopping experience that reflects the 50/50 male/female demographic of our smartphone accessories customers

Results

After launching redesigned website, we decreased homepage drop-offs by 60%, increased users adding to cart by 200%, and increased sales conversions by 250%

These were success metrics that our UX team set and tracked.

Conclusion

Content strategy, both in photography and UX writing, are critical and underrated functions in UX design

Prior to this project, I didn't know the importance of UX writing. So much of this role was outside of creating user flows and wireframes. It was about details and creating a delightful feeling outside of utility.