WORK

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Image of the desktop and mobile view of The Wakilisha Collection (TWC), an e-commerce site specializing in high-end African print suits and suit separates

The Wakilisha Collection

Project Overview: The folks at The Wakilisha Collection (TWC), an e-commerce site specializing in high-end African print suits and suit separates, reached out for help and consultation on a redesign of their website. TWC had grown frustrated after a few unsuccessful attempts with previous web developers, failing to have any consistent brand style and running into a number of functionality issues. The job here was to basically perform a total overhaul of the site from the ground up.

services

Branding, Website Redesign & Development


The Challenge

When the TWC team approached me, their website was a patchwork of outdated design elements and cluttered content as a result of having worked with multiple web developers.

As a rapidly growing high-end online clothing retailer, they found that their website didn’t function properly nor vibe with their intended vision. They faced the following challenges:

  • Aesthetics & Branding: The site’s design was inconsistent, with a mix of color palettes and fonts that diluted the brand’s identity.
  • User Experience: Navigation was confusing. Users often reported difficulties finding specific plant care instructions and frequently asked questions.
  • Mobile Responsiveness: A significant portion of their traffic came from mobile devices, yet the site was not optimized for mobile viewing. Pages took long to load, certain featured failed to work, and clickable elements were too close together.
  • Shopping Cart & Checkout Experience: Many users reported glitches when adding items to their cart. The checkout process was cumbersome, with multiple steps and unclear instructions, leading to abandoned carts and lost sales.

TWC’s goal was clear: they needed a website redesign that not only looked modern and appealing but also offered a seamless, user-friendly experience to boost sales and foster brand loyalty.

Objectives

Given the challenges faced by The Wakilisha Collection, our primary objectives for the website redesign were:

  • Brand Cohesiveness: Establish a consistent visual identity that aligns with TWC’s values and appeals to their target audience. This involves standardizing the color palette, typography, and visual elements across all pages.
  • Intuitive Navigation: Streamline the website structure to ensure users can easily locate essential information, like plant care instructions and FAQs, thus improving the overall user experience.
  • Optimize for Mobile: Enhance mobile responsiveness to cater to the significant portion of users accessing the site via mobile devices. This includes optimizing page load times, properly sizing images, and ensuring touch-friendly navigation.

  • Simplified Shopping Experience: Address and rectify the glitches in the cart addition process and streamline the checkout procedure. The aim is to provide users with a hassle-free shopping journey, reducing cart abandonment rates.

Since we were leveraging WordPress for this site, we wanted to explore the possibilities in using the plugin FunnelKit to help resolve some of their existing issues with the purchasing process. FunnelKit is a sales funnel builder for WordPress and WooCommerce with conversion optimized templates, frictionless checkout, upsells/downsells and order bumps.

By achieving these objectives, we aimed to create a website that not only looks modern and appealing but also offers a seamless, secure, and user-friendly experience, ultimately driving higher engagement and sales for The Wakilisha Collection.

Process & Strategy

Divide this into clear stages to show your systematic approach:

  • Discovery & Research: Target audience analysis, competitor benchmarking, etc.
  • Planning & Wireframing: Sketches, wireframes, user flow diagrams, etc.
  • Design: Color palette choices, typography selection, and design iterations.
  • Development & Testing: Coding process, responsiveness tests, browser compatibility checks, etc.
  • Launch & Feedback: Go-live process, client feedback, and any subsequent refinements.

Competitor

Journey Map

Solutions & Features

To address the challenges faced by The Wakilisha Collection and achieve the set objectives, we introduced the following solutions and features, in large part, with help from client input:

  • Unified Branding Elements:
    • Description: We developed a consistent brand style guide, focusing on a Kenyan inlfuenced color palette, clean & bold typography, and visual elements from the clothing designs to resonate with the brand’s African origin ethos and target audience.
  • Enhanced Navigation Bar:
    • Description: Simplified and decluttered the navigation menu, applying the new branding styles and introducing dropdowns for related topics and prominently featuring key sections like the store section and information on the sourced fabrics.

Updated Navigation Bar

  • Mobile-First Design:
    • Description: The website was redesigned with a mobile-first approach. We ensured images scaled appropriately, introduced collapsible menus, and optimized touch targets to enhance the mobile user experience.

  • Revamped Shopping Cart & Checkout:
    • Description: This was a big ask from the client. They needed ways to create sales funnels to target customers. They also needed the checkout process streamlined. Enter WordPress plugin – FunnelKit. For an additional fee, they were able to get everything they needed and then some.Introduced a one-page checkout process with clear step indicators. Also integrated a dynamic cart icon that visually represents items added, offering users a real-time glimpse of their shopping status.

Funnels & Automation Solution

Redesigned Cart Experience

  • Security Enhancements:
    • Description: The client had some issues with the SSL certification as it continually lead to an error being shown upon site load. To resolve this we integrated and verified that SSL certificates and advanced encryption for user data protection were in working order.

Final Design Deliverables – WordPress Build