A Personal Website and Online Shop for Artist, Hannah Willis

After relying on Instagram to run her side hustle as a watercolour artist, Hannah wanted to legitimize her commissions business with a professional and accessible site. My job was to build a website that would boost print sales and instill trust in potential clients that she is capable of taking on jobs of all sizes. In just one week of launching this site Hannah’s print sales went from 0 in one year to 12 in one week.

 

Objectives:

1. Make ordering a commission accessible and transparent.

2. Increase print sales.

3. Exude professionalism while maintaining artistic expression.

1 / User Personas

Hannah’s customers differ by discovery, device, purchase, and primarily generation. Separating user groups by these parameters didn’t add value to the design process as their goals remained the same: to buy thoughtful, unique gifts for loved ones. Thus, the Gift Giver was identified as a primary user. Secondly, there are Business Partners whose goals are to make a mutually beneficial connection with Hannah’s business. – talk about task floor focus.

The goals of these user groups align in two key areas: establishing trust and determining value.



2 / Information Architecture

The overlapping concerns and goals of the two user groups drove the organisation of the site – Commissions and Print Shop are on the Home Page with clear CTA’s while the Archive and About page are secondary options on the navigation bar – putting action items upfront with proof of history of work in the immediate background.

Embedded in the site are opportunities to engage further with examples of Hannah’s work and references from previous business partnerships – to establish trust and provide proof of value. These pages only present themselves as options once a user has engaged with leading content. The Commissions page serves as an example of this strategy.

3 / Wireframes

Print Shop

Being an independent artist and not an established brand, it was important that the shopping experience be familiar and simple, mimicking common ecommerce UX patterns. All of this with the intention of establishing trust within the user.

Commissions

The goal of this page is to predict a hesitant user's concerns and to address them with simple and fun means of communication. Firstly, to make ordering a commission seem easy and accessible, this page walks a perspective buyer through Hannah’s step-by-step process with numbered list formats. Secondly, it offers users opportunities to view examples at their own pace.

UX Challenges

  • How do you show examples without overwhelming the user

    This was achieved through thumbnails of example “themes,” when a user hovers over the thumbnail it becomes clear it is clickable – taking them to a gallery of more work.

4 / UI Design

In order to obtain the trust of the user while asserting the value of her work, we needed to strike a professional, yet artistic and expressive balance; users would want to differentiate her from Big Brand decorative stores and see her unique value, while also trusting that she was a professional who could deliver work on time with a commitment to quality.

I opted for a rich colour palette that was sophisticated, yet playful – like her artwork. I found a font that achieved a similar affect, Granville. To set the tone for each page this was used for Headings only, whereas a neutral and easy to read Roboto was utilised for Paragraph text.

5 / Mobile Compatability

With 60% of users accessing her site via mobile, it was imperative that the desktop design seamlessly translate to mobile. On the Commissions page, lists were formatted to go from horizontal to vertical format, with thumbnails expanding in scale to be legible on a smaller screen.

 

6 / Conclusion

Relative to Hannah’s previous website, which had been active for over a year, and Hannah’s new website, which has been active for 7 months, average monthly engagement has seen a massive increase:

  • Unique Visits are up 190%

  • Page Views are up 580%

  • Print Sales went up 3000%

The new website’s Bounce Rate of 32% is indicative of user’s excitement to engage with Hannah’s art across several pages, with an average view time of 45 seconds per page. Hannah Willis’s website has successfully become a reliable source of secondary income. It has promoted both her playful and professional sides, which in turn, has led to her landing significant business partnerships, commissions valued at over $1,000, and new print sales. All of which has motivated her to create new items for the shop such as totes and card bundles.