Visually this post isn’t going to be quite as exciting as the post that came before and the one that follows. But it’s an important part of the eCommerce website journey and one that I think is important to share with you.
The Wireframes
Between every website brief and website design comes the planning and the wireframing. This is where we sketch out how the site will work, what bits need to go where and how the functional bits of the site will come together. In a simple brochure website this is often just a case of sketching out a couple of boxes, or perhaps even letting the designer take control at the design stage if it’s a very simple site.
With something more complex like the Harvey Maria ecommerce website, we needed a lot more time to get the structure right.
As I mentioned in my last post, not only was the design in need of a little TLC, we were also very keen to improve the functionality. Simple things like how visitors view and search for the floor tiles as well as wider issues like how they move around the site.
Planning, planning and more planning
Caroline, our Creative Director, Stuart, our Senior Web Developer, and I spent a long time planning how we would fit all the elements together. There was a lot of bashing our heads together around certain elements (the sampling service and the tile browsing spring to mind in particular!) and we thought long and hard about the structure, functionality, practicality, usability (is that enough ility’s?) as well as the social media elements of the site.
All the time we put in at the outset on this has really paid off. It’s meant that our clients have been able to focus solely on the functionality and structure without getting distracted by the pretty bits. And it has also meant that Chloe has been able to focus on making it look pretty, confident that the structure works.
Getting the detail right before the design
Here are the wireframes, in all their glory. It took four revisions to get this bit right, but as it was such a complex site it made a lot of sense.
Homepage
The current website is overwhelming in terms of where to click first and what to do. We wanted to make the journey as straightforward and funnelled as possible, which should make a big difference to the sites’ bounce rate and conversion rates. Still work to do at this point but the idea was that if you are looking for a particular type of flooring that you can find it from the homepage.
Things like showing the number of tiles in each section gives the visitor more power and knowledge and makes the experience on site more enjoyable.
And the final homepage layout.
Next up I’ll share with you the designs, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!
