CARATLANE
Product Design . UX Research
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UI Design
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COMPANY
Caratlane.com
INDUSTRY
TEAM
TOOLS
E-commerce Omni Channel Business (Jewelry)
Shachi Kaul (UX Lead)
Roopal Nagaria (PM)
Figma, Sketch, Zeplin
Invision, Abstract
ABOUT
CARATLANE
CaratLane is an omnichannel brand which makes contemporary jewellery that is affordable, accessible and forever wearable. CaratLane is currently the largest online jeweller in India and has a vast number of modern consumers who shop online at caratlane.com. They also operate over 200+ retail stores across India.
UX LEAD
MY ROLE
When I joined CaratLane as a senior user experience designer five years ago, the product team was already working on a significant UI/UX overhaul of the pre-existing CaratLane India website. During that period, I was responsible for conducting user research and user testing, collaborating closely with the tech team to oversee front-end development, and collaborating on the information architecture of the website. The new website went live in September 2019. Since then, as a UX Lead, I have led many company projects. They include UX research and responsive web design for the Design Your Own Solitaire jewellery business, end-to-end responsive web design for CaratLane International (USA and Canada) and UX research and product design for OneView (a customer relationship management platform).
OVERVIEW
DESIGN YOUR OWN SOLITAIRE JEWELLERY
The purchase of solitaire jewelry is a truly special one, but it's also a rather intricate one, as each diamond's characteristics vary and are graded accordingly. CaratLane provides users with the opportunity to create their own solitaire ring or jewelry. The online user experience is broken and complicated, so users rely on the sales team for assistance with their purchase. By providing meaningful education, friendly support, and total transparency throughout the process, we wanted to ensure that the user had a seamless omni-channel experience when designing their own solitaire jewellery.
MY ROLE
USER RESEARCH, UX, UI, USABILITY TESTING
I led the UX-UI and research of the Design Your Own ring project and collaborated with the Solitaire India sales team for user insights. In addition, I worked alongside a Content Strategist and one Product Manager. The DYO feature is still in the process of development. It hasn’t been launched yet.
BUSINESS GOAL
A 2.5x revenue growth in solitaire business.
PRODUCT OBJECTIVE
1)Seamless, simple to understand and frictionless online experience of Design Your Own Solitaire Jewellery.
2)Get more online leads to the solitaire customer service team who are informed and educated about diamonds, which will reduce the user decision cycle time and help convert users quickly.
PROJECT 1: Design our own solitaire jewellery
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
I interviewed 5 Online sales executives, 5 retail executives and 8 potential customers to understand user personas, their pain points and behaviour pattern. I also audited the existing DYO feature and reviewed the market landscape. Following are the insights I gathered:
PERSONA 1 : HAVE SUFFICIENT AWARENESS ABOUT DIAMONDS
PERSONA 2: LIMITED AWARENESS ABOUT DIAMONDS
I did heuristic analysis of the DYO solitaire feature on the CaratLane website. I discovered many problems that were hampering its usability and efficiency which led to low conversion. Some of the observations I made are as follows:
- Clear steps for designing the jewellery are missing
- Difficult for a novice to understand what the filter attributes stand for
- Outdated and complex UI and UX
- Site performance is slow
- Guidance and education for the selection of diamonds is missing
SITE AUDIT
Jamesallen.com, Bluenile.com and Brilliantearth.com are the top brands for Solitaire Jewellery in the U.S.A. CaratLane does not have a significant competitor in India in the solitaire category.
COMPETITOR BENCHMARKING
USER FLOW
MOBILE VIEW
DESIGN DIRECTION
STEP1 - Choose a Diamond: Almost all of our users used mobile to design your own solitaire jewelry. Hence, we took mobile first approach to create the UI. I then created a responsive design for Desktop. Tap-able buttons stuck to the bottom of the screen were used to create filters. The utilization of a downward arrow on the extreme left was devised to enable the user to access additional attributes of the diamond.
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Homepage: Home page not only lets you explore different types of ring styles, but also makes you start your DO journey by either selecting a diamond first or setting.
DESKTOP VIEW
EXPECTED IMPACT
This groundbreaking project, which has never been done in India, is expected to be a game changer in the way solitaire diamond business is conducted. In the first phase of the launch, we expect a 2.5x revenue growth in solitaire business and a faster conversion rate for users who browsed online and purchased offline (at the store or on the phone with a sales agent).
Persona 2: Designed an easier version of selecting a ring for novice users.
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PROJECT 2: CaratLane.us Responsive Website Launch
OVERVIEW
CARATLANE.US RESPONSIVE WEBSITE LAUNCH -
Caratlane was prepared to take the company global. We were asked to create a responsive website that would cater to the NRI and American market. We had to focus on features, imagery and branding to suit the American and NRI audience, while keeping CaratLane India's brand language intact.
MY ROLE
UX, UI, Oversaw development & launch of the website
I led the UX-UI of CaratLane.us responsive website. I collaborated with the product, marketing, branding, merchandising and sales team for user insights. In addition, I worked alongside a Content Strategist and one Product Manager. The website went live in stages starting in September 2022.
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE
1.Designing the user experience for seamless navigation, improved product discovery,
and an optimised checkout process.
2. Tailor made marketing for US along with country wise catalog & pricing
3. Seamlessly checkout with multiple payment & BNPL options
4. Amped up experience for the users in terms of product deliverability & understanding customers.
5. A full fledged Order & Financial Management system compliant with US Laws
THE SOLUTION
1.Design an e-commerce website with a keen focus on the homepage, listing page, product description page, and checkout process.
2. Provide a plug & play platform for business users to effectively manage business and keep iterating to provide the best customer experience as a brand.
3. We looked at standardised platforms for the website & the ERP system to leverage their strengths.
4. So after comparing different systems by understanding the requirements, we embarked on comparing different platforms and zeroed in on Magento & Netsuite along with capable vendor partners to implement the same.
USER RESEARCH INSIGHTS
For this project I used the user research data collected by the UX research and marketing team. Following are the insights and takeaways:
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Most participants fit our target consumer segment.( age, affordability, NRI, native Americans)
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More than half of the participants are willing to buy online. Therefore, entering the market without physical stores is acceptable.
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Respondents are more willing to purchase diamond engagement jewellery in an affordable price(not the cheapest price). However, they are more willingly to buy the everyday diamond jewellery in the cheapest price.
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Price, Designs, Brand Name are the top three reasons to encourage participants buying from a certain brand
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Most important Factor: Designs/ Price/Customer Service/ Return Policy
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Video Appointment
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Promotion Activity focus on Necklace, Rings, Earrings
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Before-purchase: Price/ Designs/ Free Shipping
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Design: Tradition VS American Style
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After-purchase service: Good Quality/ Fast Delivery/ Customer Service/ Return Policy
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Fast Delivery: below 6 days
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Lifetime-exchange Service & Lifetime-buyback Service
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How do / Will we compete with indirect competitors? (ex, Amazon, Costco)
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Two separate segment: affordable and luxury serviceMonthly Payment & One-time payment: Having a store credit to keep customers (ex, Nordstrom)
COMPETITOR BENCHMARKING
We evaluated direct ( Aurate.com, Bluenile.com, JamesAllen.com, Mejuri.com) and Indirect competitors ( Amazon, Costco) in the U.S market to identify trends, strengths, and potential areas for differentiation.
DESKTOP VIEW
DESIGN DIRECTION
Homepage: Surveys and interviews conducted by the marketing and research team enabled us to understand user preferences and behaviours for designing the homepage. Our aim was to focus on two main product categories; engagement ring and mangalsutra to cater to the American and NRI market. Homepage navigation, imagery and content were tailored to serve the target audience.
Listing page: Implemented visual and intuitive filtering and sorting options to help users easily find products based on their preference. A sub category visual tabs were created to easily navigate through the menu without having to go the the homepage each time. View Similar and colour selection option was given below each product image.
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MOBILE VIEW
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Homepage: We created a responsive web design which simply means making websites that can adapt to the size of the visitor’s viewport. The content renders differently depending on the device’s screen size so that visitors have an optimal experience no matter how they access our website.Surveys and interviews conducted by the marketing and research team enabled us to understand user preferences and behaviours for designing the homepage. Our aim was to focus on two main product categories; engagement ring and mangalsutra to cater to the American and NRI market. Homepage navigation, imagery and content were tailored to serve the target audience.
Listing page: Implemented visual and intuitive filtering and sorting options to help users easily find products based on their preference. A sub - category visual tabs were created to easily navigate through the menu without having to use the menu each time. View Similar and colour selection option was given below each product image.
USER TESTING
We interviewed our American and NRI users over the video call. We gave them specific tasks and asked them about the user experience of the desktop and mobile website. We decided to address the following issues for the launch of second phase:
1. Website performance and page loading time was observed to be the biggest obstacle for users.
2. Payment gateway would fail several times which lead to increased customer frustration
3. Jeweller appeared to be much bigger in size than on the website.
4. Users were not able to make an informed choice as social proofing and user reviews were missing
5. Product recommendation under 'Similar products' on PD page was not useful as the were unrelated to the main product.
IMPACT
CaratLanee international team achieved 100% of the revenue target for the year '22 -'23.