The Brief
Vega Star Rugs needed to bring their business online. They believed — rightly — that every house can become more beautiful with the right rug choice. The challenge was building an MVP website that conveyed brand value, educated customers about different rug types, and drove purchase intent — for a product category that most customers knew very little about.
My role: UX Researcher, Lead Designer, and Product Manager, leading a team of front-end developers, back-end developers, and the client's product owner.
What We Learned from Users
User interviews revealed five consistent insights:
- Users lack awareness of different rug types available in the market
- Decision-making support is needed throughout the purchase process
- Customers perceive rugs as expensive and difficult to maintain
- The purchase carries significant weight — it's a long-term investment customers don't want to regret
- Precise sizing is critical — the wrong size ruins the room
Our customer persona was Zara: 35, sales executive, married with two children, leading a busy life but always looking for ways to enhance her home. Zara represents someone who wants to make a considered decision but doesn't have hours to research it.
The Design Process
Phase 1: Sketching
Research translated directly into paper sketches — fast, low-commitment explorations before any pixels were committed to a screen.
Phase 2: Wireframing
High-fidelity wireframes were developed for the homepage, product listing pages, product detail pages, and checkout. Each page was designed to serve a specific job: awareness, exploration, decision, and conversion.
Detail Page Testing
Usability testing revealed that users responded more positively to Variation B of the product detail page compared to Variation A. The difference was layout density — Variation B gave more breathing room to the rug photography, which was the single most important factor in purchase confidence.
Checkout Optimisation
Headers and footers were removed from checkout pages. This is a well-established pattern for reducing payment abandonment — removing exit points and navigation links that give users a reason to leave before completing the purchase.
Design System
A comprehensive design system was established before building screens, maintaining consistency across all UI elements and making development faster and more predictable.
Key Takeaways
Know your audience. Continuously observe behavior and interview as many users as possible to build a real understanding of who you're designing for — not who you assume you're designing for. Zara taught us more than any brief.
Time management matters. Allocating specific time limits to each phase — rather than working until it felt done — kept the project on track and delivered the MVP ahead of schedule. Constraints are a design tool too.
