The Redesign of the Kinder Haus website

In this project, I conducted research to evaluate the usability of a website and the frustrations experienced when navigating certain scenarios. Before conducting this research, I completed an heuristic evaluation of the website, determining the problems that I thought would be the most frustrating. I then completed a competitive analysis by comparing Kinder Haus’s website to other independent toy stores in the same area, as well as some larger scale retailers. 

The Research

The main issues that I noticed during my heuristic evaluation of the site were: that there was no search function, there was no purchasing capability, there was no product information, and the site was extremely outdated. When compared to their competitors it became even more apparent in what the Kinder Haus website was lacking. 

To determine what users’ frustrations would be, I did some usability tests with four people. I gave them all the same scenarios and asked them to complete them while voicing their feelings about their experience. Some of the tasks could not be completed because of the lack of purchasing capability on the site. The other tasks were definitely met with several difficulties. The tests validated my original concerns when all of the users made the same observations that I had made during my heuristic evaluation. 

After determining the users’ pain points, I gave several of my colleagues the toy items that I observed on the current website and asked them to create categories in which to place them. I took the results of this card sort and created a revised site map to address the navigation difficulties.

The Redesign

I created a prototype that addressed these user concerns by including a search function, having a cart so that they can purchase items, product pages that had detailed product information, and I excluded the media and blog parts of the site because they hadn’t been updated since 2014. The site was much easier to navigate and made the purchasing process much less frustrating. There was a drop-down menu where items were categorized by age, type, brand, new arrivals, and most popular. There was also a way to scroll down the page and access those categories by clicking on specific categories within them. 

Final Thoughts

The Kinder Haus website originally seemed like a site that was for informational purposes only, but lacked the necessary information. And when evaluating their competitor’s, it was apparent that the other sites were really focusing on making it easy to purchase items online. Even if they want people to come to the store, they need to address the needs of the customers first. Next, I would most likely do some more usability testing on my prototype and pitch it to the client. Then I would meet with developers and establish the redesign.