Online web store application for Ivy Lane
a flower shop
in South Carolina
Ivy Lane, which is a brick and motor flower shop that’s located in South Carolina
and has been passed down generation by generation. Today Ivy lane is struggling to
compete with the competition since they do now have any online presence which limits
their customer base significantly. Other than the loyal customer base and the event
management organizations that are working with ivy lane they have not had a new
customer in a while. because of this, they have decided to move towards having an
online presence in the form of a web application. While preserving the friendly
community format they have been continuing for generations
Main
goals
Create an online application to bring the flower buying experience to the web
Preserve the friendliness and the family values even online
Create a flow that is easyfor the customers to purchase flowers and search flor
flowers
Include a way for them to receive help from the store as well ( mimic the experience
of having someone help you find flowers )
My Design Process
The creative design process is the method I follow that helps me to understand test and iterate to
improve the product.
Target group insights
The target group for this application will mainly the state of South Carolina as Ivy lane will
be mainly focusing on working in that state. And as they already have a good foundation for
handling deliveries and other operations they can execute it properly
Group 1
Working adults who like to buy flowers for special occasions like
anniversaries/birthdays etc...
- Prefers buying flowers to loved ones and friends for special occasions
- Tend to buy flowers every few months
- Tend to buy either individual flowers or up to one flower bouquets at a time
- Prefer to get the flower the easy way but likes to see what kind of flowers they are buying
- Have a basic idea of what kind of flowers to buy but would prefer if someone were to help them
Group 2
Individuals who are doing events and other occasions that require flowers
- Tend to order a large number of flowers for events and locations
- Usually will know beforehand what the amount and requirement is
- Would prefer ordering the flowers to themselves rather than doing pickups
- Most of the time will have some specific requests for the order
Insights gathered
- Most of the customers tend to come to Ivy lane because of their reputation as a very friendly set of people, the amazing people at Ivy Lane and the customers noted that they do not want to lose that familiarity when going to the web app
- The application needs to support delivering not only to themselves but also for friends family and loved ones
- When a customer comes in without knowing what they want in the physical store an employee run-through things with the customer and picks out the perfect one for them. This is something we can also incorporate into the application
- Most of the event management organizers prefer to do their business over the phone or through the mail rather than through and app as their requirements are quite specific so a function to contact the store easily should be incorporated
- Flowers need to be the main focal point of the application
Initial Wireframes
As per the site map, we created the basic paper wireframes and then the digital wireframes that
help us understand the user flow at a higher level with this we moved into user testing
Research plan and usability study
Users were gathered as per the user personas and the low fidelity application was given to them
and complete the main flow of buying a flower through the application
key insights from the usability study
Most users prefer not to log in at the beginning of the application and go forward
when they are new and do not trust the business or the app that much. So
login/register should be moved maybe towards the right before the buying of the
product
Most users were annoyed when going through the process a second time as they had to
enter the addresses again
Most users were annoyed when going through the process a second time as they had to
enter card details again ( holding the card might introduce a separate challenge )
Some users who were not sure what kind of flowers to get were confused and indicated
they would appreciate a function where they could get help into making a decision
Checkout process
Instead of presenting the users with a long-form which will be quite unpleasant, we
decided to break the form down into three main sections and present it and made sure to
have a very clear confirmation screen so the user will not be confused at any point of
the checkout process.
To create the feeling of friendliness we have included the name and image of the person
that will be taking care of the order as well
Flower recomendation flow
The recommending flower page was quite tricky having to hit few special marks to make sure we
are creating a familiar flow of going to the shop and buying a flower.
We interview 4 people to gather the information and see how the process is when they are buying a flower for themselves or someone else and broke down that flow into 4 main parts and help guide the user through those questions to find out the flower closest that would work
We interview 4 people to gather the information and see how the process is when they are buying a flower for themselves or someone else and broke down that flow into 4 main parts and help guide the user through those questions to find out the flower closest that would work
