Southern Crafted - Home goods website
Student Team Project
Year
2024
Duration
10 weeks
Overview
Redesigning Southern Crafted’s e-commerce experience to make local craftsmanship easier to discover, trust, and purchase online.
My Roles
UX Designer: Iestablished our design system and worked with our visual design lead to balance between data-driven functionality and visual craft.
Design Outcomes
89%
Nearly all tested users preferred the redesigned experience for browsing and purchasing products.
32%
In average task completion rate.
(product purchasing process for customer)
8 Awards
From Indigo Design Awards (Including Gold in Websites & Digital Design, etc) and ENTELECHY 2025 Best Web UI
📍 Context
Why Southern Crafted?
Southern Crafted is a Savannah-based retailer selling American South handcrafted home goods.
The physical store had warmth and low country luxury character, but the original website did not clearly communicate the brand spirit or why the products were worth trusting.
Original Home Page
Why is original website need to redesign?
1. The homepage gave the wrong first impression and felt closer to a restaurant than a home goods store.
2. Product categories and navigation were scattered, making shopping feel harder than it needed to be.
3. The connection between products and craftsman was weak, which reduced trust and emotional value.
🔍 Research
Understanding How People Decide to Buy Handmade Goods Online
We went to the physical store to observe and interview some customers.
Observation
Observe customers who bought the product in store
16 Interviews
Interview with customers who bought the product in store and online customers
Team Bubble
“ I’ll check the reviews, and if people are saying bad things about it, I’ll skip it because I don’t want to waste my money. ”
“ Having shopped there before, I found it easy to search for the specific laundry basket I wanted, using the search bar and filtering options for price and reviews. ”
“ I'll see the review like if it's If people has been talking bad stuff about it, I'll just skip it because I don’t want to waste my money. ”
“ The design of the product is the most important things to me, and next would be the price to see if it worth this price. ”
“ They also indicate whether the product is in stock, so I can get a rough idea of the waiting and shipping time. ”
“ When I heard local handcrafted brand, I feel like they're like in my mind. Usually they're overpriced. ”
100+
data points
gather
16
participants
with
Card Sorting Workshop
We tested users' understanding of header, body and footer.
🎯 Problem
Finding our focus
We translated our research findings into a focused question to guide the design.
HMW help users to easily navigate, find relevant information, and better engage with the southern crafted’s identity?
💡 Design Strategy
Turning insights into action
Building on the problem statement, we defined three design priorities to guide decisions across the shopping experience.
01
Simplify the shopping path
Reorganize the information architecture of home page and product details page.
02
Bring craftspeople into the purchase journey
Connect the craftsman with the products, materials and the production process.
03
Make handmade products easier to trust
Enhance product details, reviews, stock, shipping and care information.
✅ Final Prototype
Visual Refresh
With a completely new design system, Southern Crafted's website began to align with a luxury but warm high-end home goods store.
Aa
Avenir Next
Hero Image
60pt
48pt
21pt
Avenir Next - Regular
Avenir Next - DemiBold
Avenir Next - DemiBold
Heading 01
Heading 02
18pt
Avenir Next - DemiBold
ButtonText
16pt
Avenir Next - Regular
Text
Regular, Demi Bold
Primary Typography
Color
#303A32
#1E1E1E
#F4F3EE
#EEEEEE
#FFFFFF
Design System
Bringing emphasis to what matters most
Guided by our style guide and feedback, I transformed areas of product categories into more clear and visually enhanced experiences. Here's an example:
Old Design
Categories name lacks indication of hierarchy.
New Design
1. Structured product collections to be more intuitive, featuring popular Southern-crafted home goods.
2. Added Product In Real Life section making it easier to imagine them in their own space.
Refurbished home page
The new home page brings products, craftsmanship, and brand storytelling into one cohesive experience.
Southern Crafted
📊 Validation
Testing Our Redesign
We tested with 32 participants to see whether the redesign improved navigation clarity and system usability.
Comparison of Testing Results
Original Website vs Redesigned Website
43%
89%
Average task completion rate
43%
85%
Average SUS score rate
1.2/4
4/4
How intuitive do you think the design is?
✨ Reflection
Information architecture & design system matters in UX design
This project taught me that visual warmth and shopping clarity have to work together. For a craft brand, storytelling builds emotional value, but structure, details, and trust signals are what help users confidently move toward purchase.