Bella Sareena Case Study

Background

Bella Sareena Beauty Lounge & Wellness Spa is a multi-faceted spa in San Diego that has been providing hair services, skincare, and special treatments since 2011. The owner, Orly, is a clinical esthetician who loves helping her clients achieve healthy and beautiful skin with customized facials using modern techniques. Her current website (https://www.bellasareena.com/) has a homepage with a CTA to shop her products, some featured products, a video showing the spa, and a newsletter signup. The other main page is the online shop displaying her products for sale, with individual products pages. Other pages include team, testimonials, and blog posts.

Problem

Having recently launched a new skincare line, the client wishes to expand her market reach and increase online sales, especially sales of new products.

Solution

A redesign of the website focusing on understanding the business (building credibility) so customers will trust the business and want to purchase Bella Sareena products!

Research Goals

To redesign the website to meet the business owner's goals & improve the user's experience, we must

Gain insights into industry and competitors
Discover strengths and frustrations with current website design
Assess current site (problems, potential solutions, priority revisions)

Methods

Competitive Analysis
User Interviews
Current Site Assessment

User Goals:

Learn about the business/owner from the homepage (credibility)
Learn why products are beneficial
Quickly & efficiently find services/products
Understand what the products/services are

User Needs & Motivations:

100% of participants need reviews to trust a product
100% need full product details (all ingredients, “skin type”, benefits, photos)
66% view ingredients, benefits, and “how to use” as most important details
Efficient navigation – 66% of participants thought navigation should be improved (remove unnecessary tabs)

Engaging website (photos, videos, icons)
100% need full product details (all ingredients, “skin type”, benefits, photos)
Transparency in the company and products
Products that are beneficial with clean ingredients
Clear selling points (why you need it, why it’s unlike other products)

User Frustrations:

Confusing or lack of information about business/products
Confusing navigation – want to know what is on the page before clicking
100% were unsure what the business is from the homepage
100% were confused what the focus is – products or services?
100% felt the filters were unnecessary or confusing
100% thought the product details layout could be improved – too much reading, no visual hierarchy
100% were confused by the hero section (image, CTA, value proposition)

Noted problems with Bella Sareena original website mentioned by interviewees.

User & Business Goals

Version 1

In the first version, the navigation would be condensed due to user’s feedback that the navigation was confusing and too lengthy
Includes Services (treatments and their details), Team (team info, bios), Products (Shop products), and Blog (Blog posts)

Version 2 (Selected Sitemap)

In the second version, the navigation was condensed even further, including only Services (Services Page, Team, Blog) and Products
The decision to use this design was based on further research including trends from popular websites and skincare sites. The efficiency and ease of this type of navigation/sitemap seemed like a good choice because of the needs of the business and business owner. This design directs the customer to the services - to learn about the business (gain customer trust), and products - ideally persuading the customer to purchase a product, now that they understand more about the business and products.

UI Kit

A big challenge was that the client didn’t have any direction for her website's redesign

Information she wanted included, or media, etc.
Features she wanted included
Current site didn’t reflect the style or personality of the business or owner, Orly

Solution:

Meeting as often as possible with Orly, to show current progress and get feedback
Extensive market and competitor research
Using media from business Instagram - photos, videos, and product details

Successes!!

Homepage Redesign:

Users now have a good understanding of the business and who the owner is
Users & owner like the new layout designs of each page (more visual hierarchy, clearer information and easier to use)
Users were delighted by new hero section design:
- “Reset, refresh, renew” + the video provides a relaxing, fresh, inviting feeling
- “Book now” CTA is inviting, before the users were confused by “Shop now” - what are they shopping for?

UI Design:

Users loved the new UI design with the carousel of products, additional photos & videos
Users said buttons throughout the site were more inviting (new color, text)
Users loved the “pop” of yellow throughout the pages & lineart of the lemons

Users felt the new design, along with the emphasis on handcrafted and organic ingredients in the products, gave the impression that the business cares for the customers - putting this level of detail and care into the website and products gives a great impression for the business!

Key Takeaways

It was a great experience to work with a real business owner and hear her goals and concerns, and to think about ways to address them with UX design. This experience helped me to empathize with and think from the business owner’s perspective, keeping her goals in mind, along with the user’s perspective - customers, current clients, and visitors to her website.

Creating the goal alignment chart for business and customer needs was very helpful in making decisions such as navigation -

Users wanted simple navigation
Business owner wanted to sell more products
--> simpler navigation, only “services” and “products” which directed the user to provided services (learning about the business - gaining trust) and shopping for skincare products

Findings

UI Kit

Let's connect!

kirstin.drake24@gmail.com