Omnical
Overview
Omnical is an online marketplace for electrical parts and components based in the Netherlands. They were looking to update the design of their website to create trust with visitors, increase conversions on product pages and to be able to better compete with some of the bigger companies in the same space.
The Challenge
The challenge begins with an outdated design that doesn’t evoke the trust Omnical’s returning customers know to expect and a high bounce-rate on product pages as visitors can’t quickly find the information they need to make a purchasing decision. With strong competitors who have more modern websites, it’s time for Omnical to join their ranks.
Our high-level goals were to:
Audience
Professional buyers, traders, and engineers come to Omnical for their electrical part needs. They are coming to Omnical’s product pages via Google and Octopart while searching with part numbers. To speak to their needs we need to keep in mind the transactional nature of their visit and the main pieces of information they’re looking for on product pages.
My Role
As the sole UX/UI Designer, I worked closely with the founder to understand Omnical’s customer needs and what they were looking for in the website redesign. Provided with a recent user survey, analytics, and user feedback I was able to get an understanding of where and why customers were dropping off which I took into consideration as I began making design decisions.
Scope and Constraints
The main areas of focus for the redesign were to:
- Modernize the visual identity of the site
- Update the homepage with a focus on search and categories
- Improve conversions on product pages by focusing on the visual hierarchy of information
- Creating a better layout for the manufacturer listings page
- Improving the checkout experience
Process
When I began I was provided with a recent user survey of returning customers made up of professional buyers, traders, and engineers, I also had access to Google Analytics and Hotjar where I set up and looked at heatmaps, recordings, and user feedback. I began by pulling some insights I gathered from the data.
I began by performing a comparative/competitive analysis to understand how other ecommerce sites in the same space were getting their visitors quickly from landing on the site to finding the product or information needed. The competition was far more visual with more images and icons being used, but overall suffered some of the same usability issues, especially when it came to information overload.
Based on the survey and heatmaps of the homepage it was clear that visitors wanted to go straight for the search bar at the top, with a secondary journey starting at the categories in the left rail. In light of this it was apparent that the focus should first be put on the search bar and secondly on the product categories, with a tertiary focus on popular brands and then more general information about the company as we go further below the fold.
With this in mind I redesigned the homepage with a bigger focus on the search bar at the top of the page and then with the help of an illustrator we had custom icons made for each category to help reduce the cognitive load for visitors. When comparing features Omnical was on par for the most part, though I did make social proof a bigger focal point on the homepage to help address trust issues with the brand as it made sense to leverage the positive reviews of Omnical’s returning customers.
While the product pages were the most updated pages on the site, there was still some room for improvement. I wanted to address the high bounce rate and layout issues by focusing on the visual hierarchy of the more pertinent product information and allowing for more white space to help differentiate the different blocks of information. The Omnical blue would remain in the colour palette, an updated accent colour was chosen to make the CTA’s pop, and a darker font colour to create more contrast and a better reading experience. The same product information would be displayed above the fold with the addition of some more general information regarding shipping, warranties etc, below the fold. The challenge here was to improve the overall balance on a page with so much information.
Due to technical constraints we couldn’t address some of the transparency issues when it came to the actual cost of products after taxes, shipping, and customs; that would require more time, effort, and resources than we had.
Results
The result of the redesign is a more modern look and feel while maintaining the Omnical blue and some elements of the page layouts so returning customers will know they’re in the right place. With more white space and breathing room between containers of information, updates to the font and background colours to create more contrast, and the use of category icons, readability issues have been addressed and cognitive load reduced.
*The redesign has not gone to development so user testing data is not currently available.
