PARTYCITY

Duration: 2 Weeks   Team: 1 Designer   Tools: Omnigraffle and Invision    

Deliverable: Low fidelity interactive prototype

My Role: I was in charge of user research, sketching, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing. 

THE CLIENT: PartyCity is one of the biggest in-store and online distributor of party goods in the United States and Canada. 

THE TASK: I was asked to redesign the global navigation on the PartyCity website.

THE PROBLEM: Due to the expansion of products in PartyCity's catalog, the website had become increasingly complex and had become less usable for its customers. From my research I also discovered that people were becoming more environmentally conscious of the products that they buy. At the moment, searching for eco-friendly items on the PartyCity website is difficult. 

THE SOLUTION: I redesigned the global navigation and included an eco-friendly tab and also included an in-store pick up option.  

RESEARCH

A closer look at the PartyCity website...

PartyCity has a wide range of products that they offer, which is why they have such a complex global navigation in order to account for all the products that they have in their catalog. 

INTERVIEWS

I interviewed some parents who like to throw parties every year for their children. 

From the interviews I discovered that parents enjoy throwing parties for their kids and are becoming more aware of environmentally friendly product options. At the same time, most parents have a strict budget for every party that they throw. 

CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY

I found that people had a lot of difficulty finding eco-friendly products on the PartyCity website without using the search bar. This was definitely an issue that had to be addressed because parents need to be able to find these items, but they need a more efficient way to do so. 

MY HYPOTHESIS

People are becoming more environmentally conscious and have trouble finding eco-friendly items on the PartyCity website. 

THE PERSONA

From extensive research, a persona was created. Meet Mary!

STORYBOARD

I drew a storyboard/user journey hybrid that tells the story of the persona, Mary, having trouble finding eco-friendly birthday party supplies because of her low tech knowledge. 

USER FLOW

Keeping the primary persona Mary in mind, I developed a user flow based on the PartyCity website. This is my third iteration that was created in Omnigraffle. 

SKETCHES

Here are some preliminary sketches before the digitization process. 

DESIGN ITERATIONS

It's all about iterating! I had created several iterations based off of the usability testing that I did. After each round of tests I would receive feedback and make changes accordingly. 

In this situation, I had the issue of mixing fidelities. When someone would see a 3D button, they would be inclined to click it. So I made sure to keep everything very flat to ensure that the user would not be thrown off track. I also made changes to the shopping cart because people would want to checkout right away without viewing the cart before checkout. 

These are my fourth iterations of the homepage and the shopping cart. I was able to condense the global navigation to two tabs and I also added the option of in-store pickup to help the user save money. 

USABILITY TESTING

After each round of usability testing, I would make changes to the interactive prototype. 

DELIVERABLE

Finally, after much research and several rounds of usability testing, I came up with this low fidelity interactive prototype. This solution satisfies the needs of Mary and PartyCity. Mary will be able to find eco-friendly party supplies much more efficiently and she will also be able to save money on shipping by choosing the new in-store pick up option. PartyCity will be able to expand their customer base by having a navigation that's easier to use for people of all levels of tech knowledge. 

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