TB Winds is a saxophone and clarinet shop based out of Denton, TX that sells instruments and accessories, while also offering repair services.

The owners of the shop, Jen and Tony, both wanted to learn more about how they could change their website to help encourage instrument and accessory sales online.

The Challenge

To improve a user's understanding of the products and services that the store offers.

To increase product sales and ease of use.

Play with the prototype here.

Background

TB Winds is a modern mom & pop shop located in Denton, TX.

They offer repairs, instruments and accessories for those who play in either saxophone or clarinet. Their e-commerce site already offered clean aesthetics and clear prices, but they were looking to up the ante with strong, but not pushy, messaging about their products.

TB Winds is booked months in advance for repairs, but they wanted to bring in more revenue from the products they sell.

Research

Since this was an existing site I performed user interviews with research participants and context inquiries in which I asked the same participants to locate and purchase a saxophone on the existing website.

Each participant was a musician between the ages of 23 and 27 who had bought instruments or accessories online before. Some were college students, while others were full-time professionals.

I then synthesized the research from both findings in two affinity maps. Then used these as a reference for the decisions I made in the empathize and design phases of the process.

Empathize with Hiroki

Key findings

He always checks reviews before making any purchase.

He wants to try an instrument out before buying.

The sitemap allowed me to zoom out and see all of the possible routes that Hiroki could take to get around the TB Winds site.

Hiroki wants to buy a saxophone. The user flow above shows how he would think through this process.  I used this as a roadmap for the redesign.

Responsive Design

I used the laptop screen size as the main focus, because the research showed that most users search for instruments or accessories using their computers at home.

Then I recreated some of the design for phone and tablet screens.

Test

I conducted usability tests with 5 new participants that fit within the parameters of my user persona.

Each participant was asked to complete four tasks while being observed over Zoom. I also created a usability test via Maze, in which 6 users completed the tasks. I extracted insights from that as well.

The tasks were as follows:

• Purchase a saxophone
• Book a repair
• Book a trial appointment

The objectives for testing were to discover context, pain points and insights about how users interact with the prototype.

Using the gathered research, I created yet another affinity map to search for patterns that provided insights as to what needed to be adjusted to make the experience as easy for the user as possible.

With the findings from the affinity map, I created more HMW statements and a priority matrix to determine what edits were high priority.

Iterate

The following were trends and solutions I came up with to guide this iteration of the site.

• Change CTA Copy to distinguish between a trial appointment and a repair consultation
• Add trial appointment CTA to the services page, which is where the users expected it to be
• Add a descriptive subheading to the hero to explain the company's specialization
• Edit product review layout to include ratings and differentiate it from the customer testimonials

Play with the final prototype or check it out below.

Next Steps

Conduct more qualitative user testing to ensure changes help the users complete the desired tasks with ease.

Conduct a 5 second test to ensure that the edits helped the user understand the goal of the website.

Develop a more organized and comprehensive design system for developers.

A/B testing will further validate what works and what doesn't.