Design & UX
Absolute are an experienced user experience (UX) design agency with roots built on traditional design processes. We specialise in Magento and Shopify eCommerce platforms and have a proven methodical approach that ensures your brand positioning is successfully delivered. Our user focus helps to ensure a solid foundation for growth.
The UX design process starts with a creative brief and detailed discovery workshops to define requirements. As a leading eCommerce agency, we understand the value that this process brings to any transactional website.
Whether you require a prototype, page specific solutions, or a comprehensive website or app UX review, our team of experts are here to ensure that your users receive an exceptional digital design experience. We have the skills and knowledge to deliver class leading results and proven improvements in CRO, tailored to eCommerce clients on Magento and Shopify.
UX PROCESS
It is critical to include the key stakeholders in the UX design process to uncover what is important to your business and its customers. It allows for an open discussion of your brand guidelines, personas, business logic and processes, and how these can be translated into your online user experience. Our 7 step UX process is as follows:
1 Understanding the challenge
At the beginning of the process, we initiate a Stakeholder Interview to gain a comprehensive understanding of the project's goals, objectives, motivations, success metrics, limitations, assumptions, and target audience insights. By engaging in in-person or virtual discussions with the client, we establish a strong foundation for effective problem-solving and decision-making. This step is crucial as it enables us to formulate a clear problem statement, which acts as a compass throughout the UX journey.
2 Discovery
In this phase, we conduct extensive research to gather insights and identify the main pain points. While the Stakeholder Interview and client brief provide initial information, it is often essential to delve deeper to recognize underlying issues causing friction. Our research goals include understanding user behaviours, motivations, pain points, and exploring competitors' strategies. We employ various methods, such as user interviews and competitive research, to collect data. Additionally, powerful tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, Hotjar, and Clarity help us gather valuable data on website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates. Conducting audits on existing sites provides a more technical and in-depth analysis. A great example of our research approach can be seen in the case study we conducted for Fired Earth.
3 Analyse
Once we have collected the data, we proceed to organise and review it. This step involves examining the data to gain a comprehensive understanding of its contents and identifying patterns. Affinity Mapping, a common method, is used to categorise and organise a large amount of information or ideas into meaningful groups. By employing this collaborative approach, we facilitate pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, and group decision-making. Furthermore, we create Personas and User Journey Maps to gain insights into the customers' demographics, behaviours, goals, motivations, needs, pain points, and preferences. Personas provide a holistic view of customers, while User Journey Maps visually represent the steps, interactions, and emotions users experience while engaging with a product or service. This analysis phase helps us identify the key areas of focus for problem-solving
4 Define the problem
Following extensive research and analysis, the next step involves formulating a problem statement to clearly articulate the specific challenges at hand. This statement succinctly outlines the issue or obstacle that demands resolution and emphasises the disparity between the present situation and the desired outcome. A effectively crafted problem statement typically incorporates three fundamental elements: the user, their requirements, and the acquired insights. It serves as a valuable compass for problem-solving and decision-making endeavours, providing a distinct trajectory and ensuring that efforts are concentrated on crucial concerns.
5 Ideation
At this phase, we embark on generating solutions for the identified problems. To streamline this process, we employ "How Might We" (HMW) statements, which transform challenges into opportunities for design. HMW statements encourage a shift in perspective from the problem space to exploration and potential solutions. They cultivate a belief in the existence of solutions, acknowledge possibilities, and promote teamwork and collaboration. It is essential to prioritise the generated HMW statements, and we utilise tools such as the Impact/Effort Matrix to assess ideas based on their potential impact and the required effort. This ensures that our focus remains on tasks that provide the greatest value with available resources that can be managed effectively.
6 Visualisation
Once we have carefully considered all the elements from previous stages, we use Adobe XD to enter the visualisation phase. This phase kicks off with the creation of wireframes, which is where we establish the layout and structure of the website. Emphasising content placement and functionality over intricate visual details, wireframes provide a solid framework for further development. As we progress, XD's extensive toolkit comes into play, enhancing the visual elements, typography, colours, and imagery to refine the user interface with high-fidelity interactive designs. Collaboration is made seamless through the sharing of designs via XD links, allowing for efficient feedback gathering and client review of interactive prototypes. This iterative process enables rapid refinements and ensures cross-device compatibility, delivering a visually appealing and user-friendly website.
7 Conclusion
With the feedback process completed and requested changes incorporated, our UX process reaches its conclusion. The final designs, approved by all stakeholders, effectively cater to user needs, fulfil business needs, and integrate the feedback collected throughout the UX journey. With these approved designs, we begin the implementation phase..
USER SURVEYS & INTERVIEWS
Engaging with your customers is important to get a feel of how your customers perceive you, and measure their experience with your brand.
As part of the discovery process, we would aim to create an effective customer engagement strategy, kicking off with user surveys to canvas opinions and undertaking user interviews focusing on customer mission maps to glean information about real users perspectives, providing we have a reliable set of user data to work with.
We would therefore qualify this in the workshop by conducting user research and asking you about your business and your customer data to understand how you communicate with your customers (are the customers used to receiving emails from you, seeing you in person?), how well organised the data set is (e.g. has the customer data set been segmented into groups?) and most importantly, how well you know your online customers (regular communication to groups of users is ideal here) so we have a sufficient and reliable set of user data and resources to undertake these tasks successfully.
We’d reach out to your customers and prepare for follow up meetings to undertake user interviews whereby we could assign a few customer mission maps for willing participants, noting any pain points encountered through these journeys and gathering views on the business from a user perspective.
AFFINITY MAPPING
Affinity mapping is a collaborative method used to organise and categorise a large amount of information or ideas into meaningful groups.
It is a visual and interactive process that encourages team members to contribute their thoughts and insights. During affinity mapping, individual ideas or data points are written on sticky notes or digital cards, and then they are grouped together based on their similarities or related themes. This process helps to identify patterns, connections, and relationships within the data, enabling teams to make sense of complex information and gain deeper insights.
Affinity mapping promotes creative problem-solving, facilitates group decision-making, and encourages a shared understanding among team members. By visually organising information through affinity mapping, teams can better analyse and synthesise data, leading to more informed and effective decision-making in various domains such as user experience design, research, brainstorming, and project management.
ANALYTICS
As mentioned in our UX process, we use effective tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, Semrush and Clarity.
We can track key metrics like the number of visitors, their demographics, and the sources of traffic. Additionally, analytics can provide information on user engagement, such as time spent on pages, click-through rates, and conversion funnels, enabling businesses to identify areas of improvement and tailor their website to meet user needs. By analysing website analytics, businesses can gain a deep understanding of user preferences, optimise the user experience, and ultimately drive better results, whether it's increasing conversions, improving engagement, or enhancing overall website performance.
PERSONAS
UX personas, also known as user personas or customer personas, are fictional representations of target users based on research and data.
They are created to develop a deeper understanding of the users and their needs, motivations, behaviours, and goals. UX personas provide a human-centred approach to design by personifying the target audience, helping designers and stakeholders empathise with the users and make informed decisions. Personas typically include demographic information, such as age, gender, occupation, and location, as well as psychographic details like attitudes, preferences, and pain points.
They are often accompanied by a name, photo, and a brief narrative that brings the persona to life. By referencing UX personas throughout the design process, designers can align their decisions with user needs, enhance the user experience, and create products or services that resonate with the intended audience.
USER JOURNEY MAPS
User journey maps are visual representations that illustrate the steps, interactions, and emotions users go through when engaging with a product, service, or website.
They provide a holistic view of the user experience, mapping out the entire journey from the initial touchpoint to the final goal or outcome. User journey maps capture the user's actions, motivations, pain points, and opportunities for improvement at each stage of the journey. They help designers and stakeholders understand the user's perspective, identify pain points, and uncover opportunities to enhance the user experience. User journey maps can be created through research, user interviews, and data analysis, and they can be presented as a timeline or a series of touchpoints with accompanying narratives, user emotions, and key insights. By visualising the user journey, teams can gain valuable insights, align their efforts with user needs, and design experiences that are intuitive, seamless, and engaging.
CONTACT
Contact us to find out how we can help you increase traffic and drive sales.
Please get in touch for a no obligation, highly accurate estimate and timeline for a new Magento or Shopify eCommerce site.
CASE STUDIES
Floor Giants
Discover how Absolute helped Floor Giants boost customer engagement and streamline their Magento store. Learn about the key features that made the difference.
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Magento
Pantherella
Magento 1 migration, front-end development, and Magento 2 support for sock manufacturer Pantherella. Learn more about our work with Pantherella.
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Magento -
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Support