Background
Ten Ten Tea Webstore
Ten Ren company sells Chinese tea, including rare and expensive varieties, as well as tea-related products. They exist for a long time and have many branches all over the world. Due to the growing competition and falling sales, it is time to update the design of one of the web stores.
Renovation of the web-store design that sells Chinese tea.
Solution
To resolve the above problems, the following changes are suggested:
- To improve the classification of the tea and searching system.
- To develop a new logo and website design will make the web store more attractive to customers.
- A buyer should be able not only to make purchases as a guest but also to create a user account that will allow to build a base of date for the company and to simplify the buying process for regular customers.
- To improve the classification of the tea and searching system.
- To develop a new logo and website design will make the web store more attractive to customers.
- A buyer should be able not only to make purchases as a guest but also to create a user account that will allow to build a base of date for the company and to simplify the buying process for regular customers.
Problem
User interviews showed that the first problem is a too primitive and inconvenient system of buying goods, which does not allow to create user accounts for regular customers.
The company sales more than 700 of different strains and types of tea and that makes difficult to find necessary goods due to the poor classification of them. The old website contains too many categories and subcategories.
The company sales more than 700 of different strains and types of tea and that makes difficult to find necessary goods due to the poor classification of them. The old website contains too many categories and subcategories.
Sample of the old Ten Ren Tea website with excessive quantity of categories
My Role in the Project
That was my solo project from the research phase to the final prototype.
User inquiry research was done in the local Ten Ren Tea store in San Francisco
- Ten Ten Tea website design looks obsolete.
- She prefers Oolong and 10 years old Phu-Ehr tea.
- Sara has a problem to find her favorite tea on the website.
- She would buy expensive tea only from a trusted source.
- Because Sara would like to buy some tea from this company on a regular basis, she would like to create an account but there is no such possibility.
- She would buy gift cards.
Interviews
Interviews are helped in understanding better the Problem and Users. 8 interviews were collected and here are some important quotes taken from the most informative of them.
Sara
- Adam drinks tea almost daily.
- He drinks a variety of oolong & green tea.
- For him is important good quality and reasonable price and if does it looks good.
- One the website Adam would like to have more information about tea: how much caffeine is there, is it morning or night time tea.
Beautiful packaging is important. - He would like to get a free shipping offer when he purchases some quantity of products.
- For Adam is important to read reviews and to see star ratings.
Adam
- She drinks tea daily as a substitution for coffee.
- Usually, she uses tea bags.
- The logo of Ten Ren website looks obsolete as well as their website.
- Reviews will be very helpful.
- Diana would be happy to become a regular customer and provide her information in exchange for a promo code for discount.
Diana
Description: Family & business women
Bio & Demographics: Chinese women in her 30th, married, has 2 kids: John & Jason.
Skills: Experienced tea drinker (about 15 years).
Bio & Demographics: Chinese women in her 30th, married, has 2 kids: John & Jason.
Skills: Experienced tea drinker (about 15 years).
Main Persona: Lee
Goals & Needs: She would like to keep her family in good shape with healthy relationships. She needs a good quality tea, she loves to try new teas.
Habit Story or Scenario: Lee drinks tea every morning. That helps her to energize her body before a workday. At evening time Lee drinks tea together with family at a diner. Although drinking tea is a very important ritual of her entire family. It is a good reason for gathering up and to communication.
Must do: My family love and understand the quality of the tea. The tea should be preferably old and well fermented, I appreciate a good variety and quick delivery. Nice packaging is important when I buy tea as a gift.
Never do: Tea never should be low quality, moist or with bad smell.
Habit Story or Scenario: Lee drinks tea every morning. That helps her to energize her body before a workday. At evening time Lee drinks tea together with family at a diner. Although drinking tea is a very important ritual of her entire family. It is a good reason for gathering up and to communication.
Must do: My family love and understand the quality of the tea. The tea should be preferably old and well fermented, I appreciate a good variety and quick delivery. Nice packaging is important when I buy tea as a gift.
Never do: Tea never should be low quality, moist or with bad smell.
Persona Two: John
Description: Tea Ceremony Practitioner
Bio & Demographics: 62 y/o, married, a manager in the Bank of America branch. Tourist from NY.
Skills: An expert. He practices the Tea Ceremony for 23 years.
Goals & Needs: Tea ceremony help him to keep his spirit in balance. John uses only very high-quality tea with good smell taste, color, and preferably many years old tea.
Bio & Demographics: 62 y/o, married, a manager in the Bank of America branch. Tourist from NY.
Skills: An expert. He practices the Tea Ceremony for 23 years.
Goals & Needs: Tea ceremony help him to keep his spirit in balance. John uses only very high-quality tea with good smell taste, color, and preferably many years old tea.
Habit Story or Scenario: John does tea ceremonies about 2-3 times a week and also he drinks tea almost daily. Often he does ceremonies with his wife and friends. He spends monthly a lot of money for tea and has a good collection of tea at his home in NY.
Must do: Good Pu-erh tea must keep its quality for up to 5-7 times. He prefers to buy tea from the same store. He thinks that will be a warranty of high quality.
Must do: Good Pu-erh tea must keep its quality for up to 5-7 times. He prefers to buy tea from the same store. He thinks that will be a warranty of high quality.
Description: Quality searching man. "Quality time with
quality tea!"
Bio & Demographics: Asian man, 32 y/o, single, a software engineer. Leaves in SF 3 years.
Skills: Experiences tea drinker but not an expert.
quality tea!"
Bio & Demographics: Asian man, 32 y/o, single, a software engineer. Leaves in SF 3 years.
Skills: Experiences tea drinker but not an expert.
Goals & Needs: He prefers to drink tea to stay in tonus during the day & he believes that to drink some tea is a healthy habit. He would like to know how to find high rated but not too expensive tea. James wants to know more about the history and culture of tea drinking.
Habit Story or Scenario: He likes to drink tea in the morning to wake up & @ lunch time.
Must do: Delivery should be fast.
Habit Story or Scenario: He likes to drink tea in the morning to wake up & @ lunch time.
Must do: Delivery should be fast.
Special Persona: Jason
Competitors:
www.davidstea.com
Differences:
– DavidsTea have free shipping with purchase over $50
– Bestsellers page
– Their website looks much more modern
– Pictures are better & bigger They sell tea samplers
– They offer teas for relaxation, focus, beauty, detox & digest
– They offer a choice of teaware (mugs, teaspoons, infusers...
Differences:
– DavidsTea have free shipping with purchase over $50
– Bestsellers page
– Their website looks much more modern
– Pictures are better & bigger They sell tea samplers
– They offer teas for relaxation, focus, beauty, detox & digest
– They offer a choice of teaware (mugs, teaspoons, infusers...
www.adagio.com
Differences:
– They start with instant $5 discount coupon popup
– Good Pictures
– 100 points tea rating Media about Adagio Teas
Differences:
– They start with instant $5 discount coupon popup
– Good Pictures
– 100 points tea rating Media about Adagio Teas
www.stashtea.com
Differences:
– Track your order option
– Cold drinks & cocktails
– Mugs with Stash Tea logo
Differences:
– Track your order option
– Cold drinks & cocktails
– Mugs with Stash Tea logo
Card Sorting, Affinity Mapping & Final Drop-Down Menu:
Open card sorting didn't go easy. There were too many products & categories.
The second attempt with open card sorting was more successful.
The second attempt with open card sorting was more successful.
Because of more than 700 similar products are on the website it took a couple of attempts to create clear and useful categories.
Final Drop-Down Menu.
Further user testing showed that this drop-down menu works well despite a large number of categories.
Further user testing showed that this drop-down menu works well despite a large number of categories.
Affinity Mapping.
This diagram represents the sorting of a large number of categories of products in the store.
This diagram represents the sorting of a large number of categories of products in the store.
Here you can see the sitemap of categories in the old Ten Ren Tea Website. Each of those categories contains many products and often overlapping. Sometimes it is very difficult to find a necessary product.
Check Out User Flow
Check Out method was in my focus and has been improved. On this diagram showed a possibility to make a fast purchase as a guest, to create an account for fast and convenient purchases in future and log in variation when the web store already contains your information.
General User Flow of the Web Store
Old Logo
New Logo became an important part of the new web store design.
New Logo
From Low-Fi to Hi-Fi
These pictures demonstrate the evolution of the homepage of the project from Low-Fi to Hi-Fi.
