VELVET LEOPARD SHOP

mock study

Velvet leopard is a Melbourne based brand, established in 2018, that makes bold and funky earrings. The owner, Jacinta Campbell, has been selling her earrings through Etsy and at temporary pop-up stalls, but wants something more convenient and personalised to strengthen her brand in the jewellery world.

CONTRIBUTIONS

UX/UI Designer
user researcher
Interviews
Prototyping

Skills

Figma
A/B Testing
User story mapping
Persona development
Adobe photoshop

Challenge

Build an e-commerce website that includes a special feature to make Velvet Leopard stand out against other jewellery brands and expand their client circle.

Considerations

01 Where is the best place to put these special features so that we can improve the customer journey?

02 All customers have their own distinct style, how could we accomodate the products to each individual user?

03 What features can we implement to encourage users to step outside their comfort zone?

UX RESEARCH

User interviews were conducted on a demographic of women aged 17-40 to better understand issues within the online market for jewellery and also personal style.

Market research was also conducted on other Australian based jewellery brands that were becoming more popular in 2023 to serve as design inspiration.

‍EF Studios focuses on recycled materials. They're landing page stands out the most amongst other pages on their website with it's close up imagery and close up proximity of product to natural items to emphasise their ethical standpoint.

‍Temple of the Sun also uses close up imagery of their products but they do so in a more vertically symmetrical layout for a more clean look. They also include a brief description about their collection to exude a specific mood.

‍Lucy Folk displays a lot of information about their products, however they balance the visual elements of the page by grouping imagery on the left side and grouping text information on the right using accordians to minimise cognitive load and maximise screen space.

full research pdf

design rationale

The final creation of the Velvet Leopard website aims to strengthen the brand’s identity and broaden its customer base. To heighten it’s individuality, the closet feature allows hesitant customers to try on the items before purchasing. To accompany the bright colours of Velvet Leopard earrings, a colour palette generator is also implemented for each product to inspire users with outfit ideas, providing more confidence in their ability to style and reassuring them about their purchase.

play figma prototype

impacts

New customers feel more confident purchasing items after using the AR closet feature to ‘try on’ earrings and are inspired to explore outside of their current fashion style.

‍Existing customers have a quicker way to view Velvet Leopard products, have a more convenient way to try on earrings from home and have additional styling advice.

‍Jacinta now has her own platform where she can fully control the exposure of her brand, sales and brand identity.

reflection

Generally I would play it safe and follow a more minimalist approach if the brand's colour scheme and products are as eccentric as Velvet Leopard’s, but I enjoyed learning the art of accent colours and playing around with contrasting shapes around the website to best match the brand identity. If the project timeline allowed, I would really like to do some more user testing on the final prototype to see how the users will respond, since the look of the rapid prototypes were more on the bare side and didn’t feature as much micro-interactions or images.