Project overview
The client
Threads of Hope Hellas is a not-for-profit organisation based in Greece that supports women after having experienced exploitation and abuse. Part of their business involves selling home and lifestyle products on their Shopify webshop, where each product has been sewed by a woman through the organisation’s training program.
The problem
At the beginning of my time working with Threads of Hope Hellas in January of 2023, the webshop was experiencing a high drop-off rate as well as very few returning customers. The organisation considered that a redesign of their website to make it more user-friendly, could be a solution to this issue.
The preparation
Client and user needs
To be able to effectively redesign Threads of Hope’s webshop, it was first important to understand the organisation’s needs and goals, and of course what their users need. Threads of Hope wanted to achieve the following with the updated website:
A more feminine design, while still remaining professional.
Improved ability to browse and shop by category.
A more user-friendly interface.
Research
To further understand how best I could support Threads of Hope in decreasing drop-off rates, I dove into what could actually be causing the issue. Research highlighted these four factors which have an effect on website usability:
Accessibility
Clarity
Credibility
Relevance
Threads of Hope’s existing webshop lacked a few features of these usability principles.
Firstly, the product categories were not clear enough and became difficult to navigate. Selecting ‘Shop Now’ would take the user to a page with all products available, in no particular order or arrangement. Product names were also long and confusing.
Users could read about the organisation and their values within the ‘About Us’ section, which showed trustworthiness and credibility. However, there were a number of grammatical and spelling mistakes throughout the entire website, which could have had a negative effect.
Overall, Threads of Hope’s exisiting webshop had room for improvement, to better the chances of improving user drop-off rates.
The design
UI elements
A major change made to the visual appearance was the colour palette of the webshop. Before changes were made, the primary colour was #C19770, a shade of brown, which I then changed to #C17072, a shade of pink. I also rounded the edges of buttons and images, and added shadows to soften the overall feel. The font was also changed from Assistant to Cabin. These changes allowed for the client’s request of a more feminine design.
Original website
Updated website
Functionality
To allow for easier navigation, the product categories were further divided into subcategories, as well as removing the ‘All Products’ section. The menu format was also changed from a simple drop-down to a mega menu where all categories can be seen at once.
Original website
Updated website
Conclusion
Along with the major changes stated above, many minor adjustments were also implemented.
This task was both challenging and enjoyable. I appreciated the challenge of working within Shopify and the constraints involved with the platform. I enjoyed the regular collaboration between the client and other employees, where we could all work together to reach goals and discuss new ideas.
Overall, the client at Threads of Hope was satisfied with their updated webshop, and believed it would contribute to an improved user flow where customers are more likely to complete a purchase.
You can check out Threads of Hope’s work at https://threadsofhopehellas.org/