Case Study · Aurora Studio
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40+
Artists featured worldwide
9
User interviews
3
Rounds of usability testing
The context: Aurora Studio is an e-commerce company selling artwork on clothing and other products, featuring over 40 artists worldwide.
The problem: How might the site better showcase how it works with artists, and give customers more confidence in their purchases?
The solution: Intuitive navigation and increased attention to artists help customers find products more efficiently and buy with confidence.
11
Efficiency violations
6
Satisfaction violations
4
Learnability violations
2
Error management violations
1
Memorability violation
A competitive & comparative analysis showed that while Aurora Studio's website may be more limited compared to some bigger companies in terms of products and features, it makes up for it in its unique curation. By having a more limited number of artists, and with many of these artists being Persian and Iranian, Aurora Studio can offer a more curated and personalized experience for users.
Users were tasked with finding specific products to test out how intuitive the navigation and menu/filter categories were. It took users longer than expected to complete both tasks, and with several errors. Most of the errors and extra time were due to confusion over menu and filter categories.
"I appreciate efficiency because I value my time."
"I want my expectations (fit, quality, cost) to match reality when shopping online."
"If I'm wearing a graphic design, I need to believe in the message."
"I think art is important."
These surfaced how people categorize the art itself — with words like "abstract," "minimalism," and "pop art," and descriptors like "funny," "zen," or "space."
problem
How might we restructure the site to better showcase artists and build purchase confidence?
solution
Intuitive navigation and greater artist visibility, so customers find products efficiently and buy with confidence.
Round 1 (4 tasks, 4 users):
Finding a product took longer than expected. To solve for this, we enlarged category text, made star ratings and review counts clickable, and clarified "theme" wording that had confused every user.
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Since the first task of finding a t-shirt took users slightly longer than anticipated, we made the text sizes for "product" and other categories larger to make them easier to see. To read reviews, most of the errors were simply that users clicked on the stars or amount of reviews, instead of clicking the "reviews" option below. This indicated to us that we should make those clickable options as well.Finding a hoodie with an abstract design on it was more challenging for users because our headers were not clear. All users were confused about the terminology of "theme," so in our next fidelity we updated the wording.
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Round 2 (5 tasks, 4 users):
Users defaulted to homepage artwork over the "shop" link, and "price transparency" confused people. We solved for this by renaming the term to "how pricing works."
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When users tried to find a hoodie with an abstract design on it, half of the users tried to use the artwork showcased on the home page first, instead of clicking into "shop." One user also failed to use the filters right away. We solved for this by embedding the artwork more on the page through clarifying text and better contrast to highlight where users could go, and made the icons clickable to navigate into the shop.
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Round 3 (4 tasks, 4 users):
Task time and errors both decreased. We increased text size around artist-support info and added a new section under "Our Journey" to make it more discoverable.
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When users tried to find a hoodie with an abstract design on it, half of the users tried to use the artwork showcased on the home page first, instead of clicking into "shop." One user also failed to use the filters right away. We solved for this by embedding the artwork more on the page through clarifying text and better contrast to highlight where users could go, and made the icons clickable to navigate into the shop.
To figure out how Aurora Studio supports artists, all users clicked on "our journey" first. However, 1 user was not satisfied with the results on that page, and continued navigating around the website. Furthermore, another user expressed initial confusion at the term "price transparency" so as we moved into our most detailed mockup, we needed to make adjustments. We decided to update the terminology to "how pricing works" for our final round of usability tests.
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Decreased task time and error rates across each successive round
Clearer navigation, filtering, and artist-support content
Reinforced that terminology needs user testing just as much as layout does