EcoHoney
An E-commerce store concept that favors a sustainable approach to buying honey. (MSc coursework project)
Problem Statement
To achieve sustainable development by 2030 we must change the way we consume and produce both goods and resources. Bees, as pollinators, play a huge role in ensuring biodiversity. Unfortunately, a lot of the honey sold in the UK is mass-produced, in a process that is harming the bees, the environment, and society. Moreover, too often, the product contains added sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup or rice syrup.
Tools
Miro, Figma, Axure, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Team
Information Architect (me), UI designer (me), UX researcher (me), Web Developer (me)
Duration
Discovery & Research: 3 months, Design & testing: 15 weeks
Project Overview
EcoHoney is a an E-commerce website concept to push the sustainable approach of buying honey from supermarkets and Farms. I have always been fascinated by the effects of climate change on our wildlife specifically our pollinators. This Masters of Science (MSc) Coursework project was the perfect opportunity to learn how we can improve the life of bees and other pollinators.
Interviews
During the discovery phase of the project, I conducted 4 separate user interviews with local Beekeepers and Honey/Bee products shop assistants to help me understand what makes Honey sustainable and how can local farms/shops and supermarkets inform the customer by using correct labelling. I also interviewed a few customers who often like purchasing Honey and other bee products. The interviews were conducted both onsite (shop assistants/customers) and remotely (local Beekeepers)
Key objectives
What is the process of extracting Honey sustainably?
What makes it sustainable?
How can we play our part in making sure our bees and other pollinators thrive in our environment?
How does labelling work showing providence and nutritional information?
How do customers shop in supermarkets and online, how they would like to find Bee products?
Information Architecture
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Domain Model
Once I gathered enough data/ categories from the interviews, | conducted a customer survey with 5 users to understand what frustrated them when looking/buying Honey and other Bee products. The insights helped me to pinpoint specifically which categories of products and information regarding sustainability mattered most to them.
Personas
Sitemap
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Once I had the main categories and subcategories of my website structure, I was able to design a sitemap with my users to give updated feedback on how they would navigate the site.
User Journey
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Once I had the personas data as reference and a usable Sitemap, I designed a User Journey that would help inform my Wireframes. This was to also potentially expose any pain points that users could uncover whist navigating/browsing through the website and purchasing the Honey products they needed.
Wireframes
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Home
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Quick honey guide
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Honey recipes
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News
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Find your honey
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Product page
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Contact us page
Design System
Prototype
Results
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75% users
Would like to see EcoHoney on the market
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93% users
Would use this E-commerce website
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25%
Increase in farmers wanting to join the movement for more sustainable honey.
Learnings
The most challenging aspect of this entire process for me was to learn how to write HMTL, CSS and JavaScript languages to a professional level, never having done much coding before. However, it is absolutely crucial that as UX Designers we understand how to work with engineers and developers as we are not only designing for users but for them too.