Design Problem
The design problem involved creating a website for a pet photography business called Purr & Wag Photography. The goals were to create a responsive website that was:
1. Visually appealing and easy to navigate, leading to a high conversion rate from website viewers to paying customers
2. Clearly communicated the photographer's expertise, love for animals,
3. Included essential sections such as about, contact, photo session options, pricing, a portfolio, blog
4. Offered a consistent design system that could be applied across all pages and future updates of the website.
Design Solution
The design process followed the design thinking steps with focus on the user experience.
1. Discover
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Design
5. Test
Discover:
I conducted basic user research by interviewing five pet owners and a pet photography business owner (who was a close friend of mine). Examples of some interview questions asked were:
1. Do you differentiate between a photographer who works with humans and a pet photographer?
2. Would you expect the photographer to be knowledgeable about your pet’s breed?
3. Would you expect the photographer to share resources with you about pet ownership?
4. Would you want to have professional photos taken of just your pet or with your pet?
5. Would you like to have the photoshoot at a studio or at an outdoor setting?
6.Would you want to obtain physical prints or digital prints of the photoshoot?
Based on the user interviews, I created an empathy map with four sections: says, does, thinks, and feels, along with two user personas based on insights from the interviews.
Define:
Based on the user interview I identified key insights and then created user personas.
1. All interviewees had pets, with most having dogs or cats.
2. Pets were considered family members by all interviewees.
3. A majority expressed interest in professional pet photography, preferring outdoor, natural settings over posed studio shots.
4. They expected the photographer to be a pet owner, comfortable with animals, and knowledgeable about them.
Ideate:
I also conducted a competitive analysis of four other pet photography websites, identifying critical components such as About, Contact, Photo Session Options & Pricing, Blog, Portfolio, and a page showcasing the photographer's love and knowledge of animals.
Design:
I created a logo for Purr & Wag Pet Photography featuring silhouettes of a dog and cat within a camera icon. I used pastel colors of green and lilac to convey a friendly, nurturing vibe.
Based on the user flow I created, I designed low fidelity wireframes in Figma for seven pages: Homepage, About, Photo Sessions, Rescues, Portfolio, Blog, and Contact.
Also, with it, I developed a UI style guide detailing the fonts, color hierarchy, icons, illustrations, buttons, and form input fields to ensure design consistency. The green color was chosen to convey outdoor feel and lilac was chosen to convey love, caring, trust.
Test
I built the website using Bootstrap 5, focusing on creating a responsive design. I created high fidelity wireframes for the homepage and contact pages for mobile devices to demonstrate responsiveness.
Although the website was not published live, the next steps would involve testing with real clients and revising the design based on their feedback.
