Manis x Monica
An e-commerce website selling custom-made press-on nails.
Project Context
Ecommerce website design
Solo freelance project
Timeline: October 2022 (2 weeks)
My Role
UX/UI designer
UX research
Initial website setup
Project Background
Manis x Monica (MxM) is a new company selling custom-made press-on nails. The owner has been designing nails as a hobby for years and now she’s ready to turn it into a business. MxM wants to use Squarespace to build their site so customers can purchase luxury press-on nails and find nail design inspiration, while also allowing the owner to manage/track her orders. The owner was feeling overwhelmed with designing her website, so that’s where I step in.
Project Goal
Design a fun, trendy site for young women to purchase luxury, custom-made press-on nails.
With designing this new website checkout manisxmonica.com!
Stakeholder Interview and User Research
Our targeted audience is women ages 18 to 34 who love trendy nails.
I started with interviewing the stakeholder to gain insight on her new business and discuss her goals for the website. Being that this was a new company and I only had about 2 weeks to setup the site, I watched Youtube videos to find out more about customers who purchase press-on nails.
Competitor Analysis
I gained inspiration from competitors’ websites, which helped me make better design decisions.
Key takeaways:
It needs to be clear that customers must contact Manis x Monica first before placing an order. So, I included a “How to order” section on the homepage. and each product page states they must contact Monica first.
The site needs to look clean and feel trustworthy, being that this is a new company.
Have a descriptive product name: “simple design” instead of “level 1 nail design”.
User Flow and Page Requirements
From my research and after discussions with the stakeholder, I started to define the requirements for the website.
Squarespace Limitations
I was limited to using templates for the product page, but luckily matched my sketches.
With Squarespace as the website builder, I wasn’t able to design some of the pages from scratch. I could only select from a few templates, then customize the colors. I sketched out my ideas before building the site, so when I chose a template or element, I chose one that closely aligned with my designs, then made any modifications that I could. Luckily their templates matched my sketches almost exactly.
There were a few other pages like the shopping cart where customization was limited. But I was able to modify some elements on the backend using CSS.
Reflections
I was able to grow my CSS skills with this project. Since some pages and elements had limited customization on the front end of Squarespace, using CSS allowed me to customize the page on the back end.
I had 2 weeks to finish this project, which was a lot different than others that I’ve worked on. I had to quickly work through my design process to meet the deadline, and I learned to utilize other resources during my research stage. Where I typically would do user interviews or surveys, I watched youtube videos of our targeted audience discuss their experiences with press-on nails.
If given more time, I would have liked to test the user flows/site functionality with participants before the site went live. Though we did get good feedback on the design and aesthetics.
Next steps
Working with Manis x Monica to upload images of their nail designs to the product page to give users a better understanding of what a “simple design” looks like versus a “moderate design”.
Keeping the website design up to date as the company grows.
Take a look at my other projects!
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