9:30 Club Website Redesign
User Research • Competitive Analysis • Site Mapping • Sketching • UX/UI
Everything contained on this page is personal work I have taken on independently with no involvement by the 9:30 Club.
Role
Role: UX Researcher and Designer
Timeline: 2 weeks
Team: Solo project
Challenge
The 9:30 Club is one of the most popular concert venues in the Washington D.C area. Due to customers not being able to purchase merchandise onsite, the client is looking to revamp their e-commerce experience. Read the in-depth Research Report.
Research
Research Objectives
First I set out to understand the behaviors, pain points, needs, and goals of 9:30 Club shoppers through in-depth interviews. Then to understand the current layout and level of usability of the 9:30 Club website, I created a site map and ran usability tests.
User Interviews
First, I conducted interviews with 3 people who have attended 9:30 concerts in the past (See interview guide). All of these participants were recruited from my personal network and have bought clothing online before. With more time, I would like to have passed out QR codes to people waiting in line to gather survey data.
I learned that users care most about having sufficient product details. These key insights informed my persona that would help me keep the user at the center of my design process. Meet Jane.
Usability Testing - Round 1
To find out how my users felt about the current 9:30 Club website I ran, I gave each of my 3 participants two tasks to complete: search for a beanie and water bottle then complete the checkout process. I measured the success of these tasks as described in the usability test plan. I then created a results table and synthesized my findings into the “Recommendations” on the right.
Click to see my usability test guide.
Site Mapping
Before I could implement the recommendations I wanted to gain a better understanding of the current website navigation. I was able to see that this website not only caters to the 9:30 Club but to other DC concert venues as well. Also, the labels for the 9:30 Club tab seemed to stray away from the best practices of other e-commerce websites, which prompted me to do a competitive analysis.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis to understand the best practices of other e-commerce websites. I learned that the 9:30 Club was lacking in many areas, specifically the product reviews and ratings that my persona would care a lot about. If I were to do more research into competitors I would also include the brands that my persona frequents such as Etsy and Instagram.
Open Card Sort and Site Map 2.0
Going back to the current site map, I wondered what a better navigation would look like. To understand this I asked participants to categorize and label all of the 9:30 Club’s products in Optimal Workshop.
From the open card sort data, I created a new layout that is focused only on the 9:30 Club and incorporates category labels that participants came up with.
Design
Sketches and Wireframes
Thinking about Jane’s biggest pain point (product details) and the findings from the usability tests, I decided to spend most of my energy sketching potential solutions around the product description page. After deciding on the sketch that would provide Jane with sufficient product details I created low-fidelity wireframes to better conceptualize my design.
Test
Usability Testing - Round 2
I conducted 3 usability tests with different potential users (also in my personal network due to the limited timeline of this project) and asked each to complete the same task as my first round. The feedback allowed me to identify potential improvements to the greyscale design. Results showed an average decrease in task time by 1:15 seconds and reported level of satisfaction increase by 2 out 5 points. See full results of second usability test.
High-Fidelity
With a prioritized list of changes from my second usability test, I felt ready to create a high-fidelity prototype. The final prototype speaks to Jane’s desire for product details while providing a seamless checkout process.