Watch Hub for Prestige
Who is Prestige?
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Prestige is one of the media brands and web platforms of Burda Luxury within the group of Burda International. Burda International is a luxury content creator for readers in Asia and Europe. They globally operate in various markets and owns more than 300 media brands. Burda Luxury is the Asian arm of Burda and is one of Asia's most vibrant and progressive independent media houses; this includes a host of successful luxury and lifestyle brands across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and India.
Project Summary and Challenge:
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Create a cohesive high-fidelity prototype and user experience that presents the narrative of luxury and prestige of a high-end watch. Burda has a lot of watch advertisers in their print magazine that are keen in transferring the concept into digital platform.
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The ask was to further improve and develop the initial website concepts done by their salesperson - into a complete, clear and intuitive user experience with clean UI that expresses the sophistication and spirit of a premium watch.
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Client:
BurdaLuxury - Prestige
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Timeline:
2 weeks
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What I Did:
Desk Research
Competitive Analysis
Created Wireframes
Low-fi and Hi-fi Prototype
Presentation to the Client
Research and Design
Strategy:
Develop a website with clean and modern visual layout and minimalistic typography that will bring focus to the content and products.
Create a user journey that promotes the hierarchy and value of content that users can effectively navigate through a user-centric web platform.
Competitive Analysis
Observing and understanding the design patterns that competitors use to create a premium and lifestyle driven narrative.
Design Pattern 1:
Expressing sophistication through minimalism
Clean, simple and modern layout of products emphasizes sophistication. The product image stands out and creates a focus for the users. Supplementing information such as model and unit details are given, even the like (heart) icon is simple yet indicated for user's reference.
Design Pattern 2:
Simplicity is elegance
Uniformed menu tabs layout and typeface including brands create consistency, this presents the spirit of elegance that expresses the narrat
Design Pattern 3:
Layout Hierarchy
Layout hierarchy gives form and structure to the content that would reduce the user’s cognitive load. Giving proper order of the content effectively presents the information that aims to pique user's interest as well as increase the user retention on the platform.
"How might we redesign the watch website that will present a luxury and premium narrative that provides an overall intuitive and user-centric experience"
Mapping the User Journey
Creating the future state of the user flow presents a more detailed and structured navigation throughout the whole website. This shows the basic and general information per category that the previous layout lacked. Presenting main topics under the home or main navigation page give the users the flexibility and freedom to discover the product and brands.
Design Proposal
and Recommendations
The competitive analysis and desk research were the guiding principles that gave structure and basis for the design proposal
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The Honeycomb Design Principle is the tool that helps identify areas in a website redesign that are most important and which areas are the priorities; these principles defined the design recommendations which helped further improve and develop the product.
Design Recommendation 1:
Presenting useful information by making the content findable and usable
Categories are curated in the level of hierarchy to the needs of the users for better navigation. This flow provides better presentation of the content. With a more structured content, the information and subject of user's interests are given the priority. The platform becomes valuable by presenting a complete source of information (category driven) that provides a full range and varied content that caters to the target audience. Hierarchy of title layout, indication of subtitles and reading length give additional details to pique user’s interests.
Design Recommendation 2:
Making the content findable and usable by showcasing desirable content
Menu tabs with different subject of interests or categories were indicated at the header tab for easier navigation within the entire site. Micro-animation for navigating the different leading brands gives a soft and elegant touch.
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Headers and titles are kept simple, clean and minimal which makes the content stand out. Brand names were kept in a uniformed and similar layout to show consistency and equality.
DESIGN SOLUTION 3:
Providing credible information
Citing and linking content from recognized and verified accounts, articles, etc. direct from the brand helps gain trust and delivers accurate information.
Additional Recommendation:
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Leverage on the prominent social media platforms such as Podcasts, Youtube and Instagram
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Provide expandable and curated content for more selection and comprehensive information such as:
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Videos > Experts sharing their insights, featured video, lifestyle shows
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Articles or News > editorial and blog posts
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Photography
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Design, engineering and craftsmanship
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Open an online subscription for VIP guest list or watch enthusiasts (eventually to build a community)
Summary of Study
Content hierarchy provides an effective flow of valuable, flexible, and significant presentation of the information.
Clean, modern and minimalist visual design language and layout offers as a solution for a more sophisticated interface, this further expresses a premium and luxury narrative.
Curating the content with a structured flow and design presents a holistic story-telling that provides an overall intuitive and user-centric experience.
Learnings
Refining the design details of the website such as visual layout, typography and content narrative contribute to the overall intuitiveness of the product. Using the honeycomb design principle can help and guide stakeholders to identify the areas needed to be further developed and improved on. Elements of refinement and fundamental design aspects provide a premium, cohesive and better user-centric experience.
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The challenge of a solo case study is no easy feat, especially given with only a 2-week timeline to study, design and create a website for a luxury brand. But this experience had helped me in becoming a better UX designer; with proper time management and sheer dedication and focus on the project, I had delivered and presented substantial output. Two weeks was definitely not enough time to completely create a product, however, it’s a good amount of time to realize and discover a great amount of work is needed to design a website. This solo project had made me understand better the significance and value of teamwork in a UX project, but it had also taught me how to be more flexible, adaptable, detail oriented and critical to the solutions of the problem which are all applicable and useful to any design project.
Client Feedback
“In my interactions with Aisa, I found her to be very detail oriented and user centric who wanted to find solutions for a real problem. She was able to find solutions to complex issues and synthesize them in a concise way. Aisa has a pleasant personality, showed great time management skills and was able to share the learnings across very clearly. ”
-Amrita (BurdaLuxury)
