Helping Britain’s last surviving bookshop chain reinvent itself

Client
Waterstones

Duration
Jan 2014 - April 2015

Platform
Responsive web

Role
UX/UI designer

Team
Product owner
Digital copywriter
Online content manager
Data analyst
Developer

Deliverables
User flows
Wireframes
Interactive prototypes
High-fidelity visuals
Design system specs

Expertise
‍Strategy
UX
UI

An icon of Britain's cultural landscape

Waterstones is a British book retailer that operates 283 shops. Founded by Tim Waterstone in 1982 with the intention of building a chain of bookshops with a wide specialist range, friendly atmosphere to browse in, and knowledgeable booksellers.

Business problem

Declining sales of physical books, together with the relentless growth of Amazon, had led the famous book chain to the brink of bankruptcy.

Challenge

To create a website experience that feels like walking into your favourite Waterstones bookshop, with a “simpler and more pleasurable experience” for customers.

Competitor analysis

The first step was to conduct research into Waterstones' direct and indirect competitors; this helped to ground our team and stakeholders in the competitive landscape. The analysis revealed our competitors were mainly focusing on:

Intent purchases
Search driven
Utility experience
Efficiency and convenience
Desktop first

Learning about the users

Through user interviews we created a concrete understanding of what drives our customers' book purchasing decisions.

Book covers and samples
Tailored recommendations
Social proof
Inspiring content info on authors

User behaviour

Analytics, heat-maps and on-site surveys helped us to identify the drivers and triggers for people visiting the Waterstones website.

Opportunities

After conducting the user interviews and having a close look at the data, the possible opportunities were clear:

Discovery purchases
Generation of demand
Customer experience versus transaction
Focus on engagement
Mobile first

What does a good user experience look like to our customers?

Through analysis of our own quantitative research and Google's need for speed data, we were able to rank the UX pain points in order of importance to the users.

Why does speed matter?

40% of visits are abandoned if a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Focusing on goals not features

Framing the business objectives and user needs into focussed opportunity statements formed the foundation for the new experience. This helped us to explore ideas, gain alignment and drive decision making.

Iconography

I redesigned Waterstones' iconography to maximise the impact of our designs across all applications, so that they:

Were optimised for high pixel density displays.
Maintained their legibility at small sizes.
Provided ample touch targets.
Were reusable and interchangeable.

The responsive spacing scale

The grid is based on a 4pt square. This value controls the proportion, balance, and vertical alignment of every component. All elements – including icons – are aligned to this unit.