House of Fraser Microsite



As a leader in anything high-end, from fashion to accessories to party supplies such as theme decorations, balloons and costumes, House of Fraser has decided to expand its services to include additional planning and buying options for its customers. It wants to make it easier for people to organise and pay for themed parties, and to encourage more frequent parties.



OVERVIEW





Individual project where I was tasked to design a microsite to make it easier for people to organise and pay for themed parties. I Conducted user research and testing to design a low fidelity prototype that provided users with inspiration for party themes, help split costs, send reminders and track invitations & RSVP’s.




MY ROLE





UX RESEARCHER's

&

UX DESIGNER's




HOW I got there



TOOLS



Papers


Sharpies


Scissors


Tape


Post-it-notes


InVision


Sketch


Omnigraffle



THE Problem




In a recent market research study regarding parties, participants cited that it was becoming more difficult to throw parties due to the costs involved, which continue to rise. Others felt they needed more advice about how to throw a great party. Several participants said that they like to take responsibility for organising a party with their friends, however they found that the logistics can be difficult (e.g. that it is unclear what has been bought and any remaining items that are needed, arranging delivery, and splitting costs). ​



SKILLS



Business Analysis


Competitive Analysis


User Research


User Interviews


User Flows


Design Studio


Sketching


Paper Prototyping



Hypothesis



Create a microsite that will help people plan and manage their parties, with some of the following points addressed-

  • Provide users inspiration for a party theme


  • Help users with estimating the costs


  • Help users find additional items to embellish the theme they are creating


  • Allow users to send invitations and track RSVPs


  • Allow users to send party reminders


  • Allow a user to split the costs with a group of friends


  • Allow users to select from delivery/pickup options​




What I dID



Competitive Analysis





I needed to start thinking about the features House of Fraser may need to introduce by looking at companies who provide party services. After extensive research I found that there was no market leader who was specifically tailored for themed parties, only sites that specialise in certain areas i.e only costumes or only e-invites. So I started to think about how I can try and combine some of the key features from all of these specialist sites into one.




Information Architecture






We were given a list of 100 inventory items that needed to be incorporated into our microsite. As there are many items that would be incorporated into the site, I decided to do a card sorting exercise which helped me group my products into categories and create a hierarchy.

Grouping these items would help users understand which categories and subcategories these items would fall under, while browsing the site.



USERFlows





I needed to start to think about how the users will access the key features I intend to incorporate. I sketched a few user flows to ensure that the path the user takes to get the features worked correctly. After several iterations I had created simplified versions of the users path to their goal.



Design & Test





I was now in a position where I was able to create a low fidelity wireframe of my microsite. I went onto test this a few times to ensure the users were able to navigate around the site and go through the new features I incorporated.

​




“ Information Architecture is the way we choose to arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole ”



The Result





High Fidelity HOUSE OF FRASER MICRO-SITE



PROTOTYPE & CASESTUDY
The fully functioning prototype is available for you to view on InVision, for the prototype & further reading on this project for the 'next steps' please view my case study & portfolio links below.


PROTOTYPE
CASESTUDY