Society6 Website Redesign

Summary

Historically, mobile was something designers did as an afterthought once the desktop wireframes were designed. But now, with anywhere between 40% to 75% (Smart Insights, 2018) of visitors accessing sites via mobile, businesses can no longer treat a mobile site as secondary priority.This means designing a mobile site before designing the desktop site; this is called mobile first design. The process when designing a desktop version before the mobile version is developers code the desktop site, write style sheets to be responsive, and determine where the content blocks go. This creates a problem in a mobile view, as the developer would have to assume where the content blocks go, which is not always accurate. If mobile first design is done, the designer can figure out how to leverage and optimize the larger screen real estate available on a desktop. This would lead to a high-quality user experience in both environments.

Problems with Society6 Website

1. Homepage Community:
While the design is quite modern and flat, content wise all the site offers the user is how many different types of products they sell; however, they are so much more than their products. These ‘sellers’ are real people, not just some faceless company out for you money. They are missing a huge chance to connect with people.

My idea would be to highlight connections with a story, review, or testimonial which can bring value and build trust. Another idea to connect with their audience would be to have a featured artist of the month which could link to a section of their blog. They could share the artist’s story with users, further connecting and engaging them with their customers.

2. Buy Page Overhaul
On their main buy page, which is their bread and butter, the experience to find what you are looking for can be a struggle. The filtering is not as robust as it could be and you cannot muli-filter. For example, you cannot choose both a canvas and a metal print, it has to be one or the other. Other poorly executed UI designs are the ‘sort by’ pattern which looks like a filter and the color filter which can easily be simplified.

My idea would be to overhaul the filtering system by cleaning and simplifying the UI elements and placing them in the correct position. This would enable people to find what they want faster which in turn makes for a better experience.

3. Robust Search
We live in a time that’s heavily dominated by search. By just looking at some of the many Google algorithm updates from the past few years, you can see that people want their information to be easily accessible. Their search works, but is not front and center. While the option to browse is nice, it should be secondary to the search. I would say most people looking for an art piece generally know what they are looking for.

My idea for the search page is that it needs to be front and center especially on the home and buy pages. The search itself also needs to be more robust with a search dialog box that comes out and auto-populates once users start typing, similar to what Airbnb already has. It is so much easier to type in a term, as compared to trying to struggle finding what you need though navigation.

Mobile vs Desktop Users

Desktop Wireframes

Mobile Wireframes

Mobile LowFi Prototype Demo

Mobile LowFi Prototype Demo

Mobile HighFi Prototype Demo