Charnice Milton Community Bookstore Levels the Playing Field
Getting books into the hands of the nation’s most vulnerable children
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Solo Project
UX Researcher and UI Designer
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Duration
A 2-week design sprint
Conceptual Project
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Tools
Figma
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets
Microsoft Visio
Paper and Pencil
PowerPoint
Slain Journalist, Charnice Milton, Wanted to Close the Literacy Gap Among Impoverished Youth!
Sadly, Charnice Milton was killed on May 27th, 2015, and her murder still remains unsolved. To honor her memory and dream of closing the literacy gap among children living in poverty, the community banned together and opened a bookstore in Charnice’s name. Though the community continues to mourn the loss of the 27-year-old journalist, Charnice Milton’s dream lives on in the Charnice Milton Community Bookstore is one of the only bookstores in the area. Currently, every $5 spent at CMCB puts a book into the hands of a child in need!
Source: https://thedcline.org/2019/06/13/new-community-bookstore-expands-literacy-options-in-ward-8/
The Challenge
As a UX Researcher and Designer, I was tasked with improving the navigation from the home page, through the checkout process for a small local bookstore, located in Washington D.C. Charnice Milton Community Bookstores built a website, but visitors are not completing the checkout process. CMCB wants the website to provide their customers with the information needed to what they are looking for and check out with ease. It’s important to CMCB to maintain their “small shop” appeal and great customer service, while also displaying the quality products they offer.
What is the Current State of the CMCB Website?
To empathize with the client, the first thing I did was visit the current website to understand how the company is presenting its brand and business. From there, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the site, focusing on global and local navigation of the homepage and product pages.
Current Site Home Page
Customers want to support a local business with a good cause, but the navigation hierarchy and aesthetics of the website is detracting from the goal of selling books.
Insights from heuristic evaluation:
Search and filters
Readability & Scan-ability
Conventions
paperclip represents shop link, instead of attachment and #WeLuvBooks is the home page icon, rather than brand logo
User Testing
I conducted user testing with 3 users, to evaluate the process of navigating from the homepage of the website, through the checkout process.
Tasks:
Purchase the cheapest bestselling novel.
Apply a deal in order to purchase a popular non-fiction book.
Key Insights:
Users were confused about which link to click on to get from the home page to the book store
Users were frustrated that there are no filter options on the product pages
Users wanted to see reviews on product pages
Users didn’t like that they couldn’t see recently viewed items, to compare products
Users wanted suggestions, based on their current book selection
Users had a hard time finding deals, since there were no coupons visible on the website.
The Problem
CMCB customers and need a clear path from the homepage to the checkout so that they can enjoyably purchase relevant items online.
The Solution
I believe that if I provide users with a clear path from the homepage through the checkout process, customers will be more engaged.
I know this to be true if customer abandonment decreases on the CMCB website and the number of successful online purchases increases.
