Carbonado
Crafting Carbonado’s digital journey: A design that turns clicks into exploration, guiding every adventurer through a seamless blend of function and discovery.
Duration
8 weeks
Company
Unigage
Clint
Carbonado
Roles & Responsibilities
Research
Ideation
Wireframe
Visual design
Prototyping
Team
Sai Charan (Mentor)
Strategist
Andrew Peter (Mentor)
Performance analyst
Venkat Raman
Head brand strategist
Santhosh R
Art director
Vysakh g krishnan
Developer
Jessica Pinto
Copywriter
My journey at Unigage.
My internship at Unigage was a turning point in my career as a UX designer. I worked on a variety of projects that sharpened my problem-solving skills and deepened my understanding of user needs. Collaborating with cross-functional teams taught me the value of communication and iteration in design.
The highlight of my experience was the complete redesign of the Carbonado website, alongside projects like QR integration for smart advertising and creating analytic deck for Unigage. This experience laid a strong foundation for my growth in UX.
Project brief.
I redesigned the Carbonado’s website to improve user engagement and reduce the bounce rate.
This involved enhancing the brand identity, simplifying navigation, and refreshing the visual design, leading to better user interaction and retention.
About Carbonado
Carbonado is an Indian brand that creates durable and versatile gear for travel and everyday use. Their products are inspired by the team’s own experiences and focus on functionality, comfort, and quality.
They emphasize thoughtful design to meet the real needs of users. Their mission is to inspire movement and adventure with products that blend durability and style.
Understanding the Problem.
The website of Carbonado was experiencing significant user engagement issues, with 75% of visitors exiting the homepage without scrolling.
The website lacked a clear brand identity and had confusing navigation, which frustrated users. Additionally, the product pages did not clearly explain how to use the products, and the categorization was inadequate, making it difficult for users to find what they needed.
The collection pages were poorly structured, and the "About" section failed to effectively communicate the brand's story. Visually, the website was unappealing, further contributing to the high bounce rate. These issues highlighted the need for a comprehensive redesign to improve user engagement and retention.
Goal
The goal of redesigning the website was to boost sales, increase user retention, and improve conversions. This involved creating a clear brand identity, simplifying navigation, and better organizing product categories.
The redesign also aimed to enhance the visual appeal of the site and provide clearer information about the products to educate users more effectively.
Approach
Discover
Ideation
Design
Research and discovery
For the research phase of the project, I focused on several key areas:
Domain Study and Heatmap Analysis: I conducted an in-depth study of the industry domain to understand market trends and user expectations. Additionally, I analyzed the existing website's heatmaps and user behavior data to pinpoint areas of improvement.
Competitive Analysis: I conducted a comparative analysis of competitor websites to determine how our design could stand out and provide a unique value proposition.
Product Understanding: A significant portion of my time was dedicated to studying each product in depth. This was crucial for developing a strategy to effectively educate users about the highly designed nature of each product on the product pages.
Competitive analyses
Usability
Clean, modern design with a focus on product details
Eco-themed design with focus on sustainability
Product-focused design with a straightforward layout
Minimalist design with emphasis on functionality
Visual Appeal
Uses vibrant colors and sleek images.
Earth tones and recycled visuals
Functional images of products
Emphasis on product utility.
User Experience
Easy to navigate with clear product categories
Simple and clean layout
Simple navigation
User-friendly, but not visually striking
Key Features
High-quality product photography, interactive elements, and customer reviews enhance trust and conversion rates.
Strong brand storytelling about sustainability, clear call-to-action buttons, and easy checkout process improve sales.
Highlights USP, and features like "Best Sellers" and "Customer Favorites" sections.
Clear segmentation of products and interactive features like "Find Your Fit" tool help customers make purchase decisions.
Competitors like Mokobara focus on sleek visuals and product details, while Uppercase emphasizes sustainability. Carbonado balanced these insights to refine both usability and brand storytelling.
Style guide
I had a meeting with the graphic designers and stakeholders to finalize the style guide ,later it was finalized with vibrant green adding a sense of energy and sustainability and the "Space Grotesk" font for a modern, energetic, and clean design.
Typography
Aa
40px
24px
16px
Space Grotesk
Regular
Bold
Color palette
#D9FF42
#F3F3F3
#191919
Persona for Categorisation
After user interviews and research, I found that two main types of users visit the Carbonado website, those who know exactly what product they want and those who come to explore the brand and its offerings.
Dev
A decisive buyer who arrives on the site with a specific product in mind, looking for a quick and seamless way to find and purchase it, without any distractions or unnecessary steps.
Ananya
An explorative shopper who visits to browse and learn more about the brand discover a range of products.
Site map for home screen
The site map has been developed to enhance user navigation, with a primary focus on the homepage. While significant changes have been made to streamline the homepage experience, other pages remain largely consistent in terms of navigation.
Home screen flow
When designing the home screen flow, I aimed to balance intuitive navigation with engaging content to ensure both efficient access and an enjoyable experience.
Clear and focused categories: To enhance navigation, the website now features a streamlined header with clear categories for users who know what they want.
Hero banners: highlight newly launched products to immediately capture user attention and drive engagement.
The Brand Philosophy: communicates Carbonado’s core values and mission.
Video of top products offers a visual break, enhancing the experience while promoting key products.
The Reel section: showcases creative product reels from Instagram, leveraging Carbonado's strong online presence to engage users and enable direct purchases from the videos.
Best Sellers: Highlights top-performing products to attract potential customers.
Award section: highlights the brand’s achievements and credibility, enhancing trust and showcasing its industry recognition.
Categories for who missed out on the top to ensure all users can discover products regardless of their navigation preferences.
About Us: it provides a brief introduction to the brand's mission and values.
Activity-based categories: For those exploring the site, we’ve introduced activity-based categories to make discovery engaging and intuitive.
Brand USPs
Dropdown menu
The dropdown menu as clear sections and highlighted categories.
Product images help users quickly find popular and new items, making navigation simple and engaging.
Collection pages
The Carbonado collection page was designed to be visually appealing and engaging. The clean, easy-to-navigate product grid showcases clear images, prices, and color options for a smooth shopping experience.
Mid-page product banners break up the layout, adding visual interest and enhancing the page flow.
To help users understand how to wear the products, hovering over a product image shows how to wear it.
Product page
Social proof
The product page focuses on conversion by highlighting key details such as clear product name, providing social proof, a discounted price with a countdown to create a magnitude, and a Carbonado Pay Later EMI option for flexible payments.
Product features are summarized with icons, while the clean layout and prominent "Add to Cart" and "Buy It Now" buttons make it easy for users to take action.
The "Add to Cart" overlay is clean and straightforward with simple buttons.
PDP Images
The PDP image flow guides users from a broad overview to detailed features, showing the product's functionality, benefits, and real-life use. It captures attention, highlights quality, and builds trust, enhancing user connection and purchase confidence.
Perspective
Frontal Display
Rear Display
Interior
Key Features
Signature Features
Additional Features
Product details
Wearing Options
Life style image
PDP A+ Content
The A+ content on the Carbonado product page was meticulously designed to educate customers and build trust.
which will give us higher conversion rates and enhances customer satisfaction, leading to better overall sales.
Ultimately boosting their confidence in making a purchase.
Why A+ ?
A+ content was crucial feature-rich products of Carbonado.
It educates customers on how to best use the product, highlights its unique features, and addresses potential concerns.
For Carbonado, this is essential because the bags are designed with multiple features that might not be immediately obvious to a casual viewer.
The use of high-quality images and detailed captions helps in creating a narrative around the product.
This not only makes the product more attractive but also more understandable. Visuals play a big role in conveying how the product works and why it stands out from competitors.
This content not only educates but also drives conversions by reducing purchase anxiety and enhancing user engagement.
About section
We have focused on the brand's mission, design philosophy, and commitment to quality.
The flow is divided into:
Why us?
What do we do?
How do we do it?
Who are we?
I was simultaneously creating screens for mobile to ensure a responsive and user-friendly experience across all devices.
But did it work?
Lets talk numbers
*These number are taken after a month of the website launch*
Doubled the conversion rate on product pages
Increased from 0.45% to 0.9% on average across all products.
23% increased in homepage engagement
Indicating users are spending nearly a quarter more time interacting with the homepage content.
They're scrolling homepage further than ever before
The average fold is lower on the page, suggesting that users are scrolling further down.
15% boost collection page engagement
That's a clear sign that our product presentations are hitting the mark!
SEO success story
Doubling the organic search traffic, skyrocketed from 7,000 to 13,000 visits!
That's an incredible 85.7% increase in organic reach.
Increase in collection page conversion
There was a significant increase in the conversion rate on the collection page.
*Though the exact percentage isn't provided*
Appreciation and Learnings
The redesigned Carbonado website received high praise from our CEO and my mentors at Unigage. They appreciated the fresh, user-friendly design and how it aligned with the brand's goals.
Received exceptional feedback from Shopify experts.
“Disclaimer: Vysakh, the developer on our team, was responsible for the technical implementation of the website.”
Key Learnings:
Collaboration and Feedback: Collaborating with cross-functional teams taught me the value of diverse perspectives.
Regular feedback from mentors helped me see my design choices differently, leading to effective iterations that balanced user needs with business goals.
Adapting to Constraints: I learned to prioritize and strategize decisions under real-world constraints like tight deadlines and technical limitations.
This experience taught me to balance ideal designs with practical solutions.
E-commerce Design Expertise: This project deepened my understanding of e-commerce design, focusing on optimizing conversion rates and user engagement.
Visit the website:
Check out my other projects
"Thank you for exploring this page in full. If you're inspired by what you've seen, let's connect and collaborate to create something amazing together!"