Sundays Optimization - UX Case Study 2023

UX Case Study

Sundays for Dogs

Taking Sundays' usability and design to the next level.

Written by

Justin Watts

Duration

1 year

Team

1 UX

My Role

UX Lead

Type

B2C

INTRODUCTION

Sundays wanted a design upgrade.

The startup Sundays for Dogs is a premiere, subscription based website for animal lovers who want to treat their dogs. This project was to help redesign a homepage, checkout, product details and a cancellation system.

PROBLEMS

Data driven redesign with limited user input.

Sundays is a startup. One thing I learned during this project is the value of speed. There was less time to think and more time to experiment. This is vastly diffierent than enterprise UX.

APPROACH

Fast paced, piecemeal UX optimization.

The first step was to seek out best practices. From that point, I would collaborate with internal stakeholders on design decisions. Finally, I would make the designs and pass them to development.

UX Deep Dive Below

WHAT I DID

Full throttle Product Design.

My role on this project was UX Lead. The team emphasized speed over research so the focus was Product Design. To prepare for design, I conducted a competitive analysis and dove deep in Sundays analytics to understand user flows. For design, I was responsible for high-fidelity mockups of each screen and a new component design system.

UX Deep Dive Below

Product Design

Prototypes

Competitor Research

Data Analysis

UX Strategy

Design System

DISCOVERY

User Research

Interviews with external client users and internal stakeholders. Since the site is very customizable it was helpful to learn about specific issues, pain points and requests.

DISCOVERY

User Research

Interviews with external client users and internal stakeholders. Since the site is very customizable it was helpful to learn about specific issues, pain points and requests.

RESEARCH

Learning the prestige dogfood landscape.

Sundays sells nutritious, fresh dog food to improve canine lives. There are a lot of competitors in the space: Ollie, Bezzie, Nom Nom, Farmers Dog and even cat food sites such as Cat Person. I did some competitor analysis to unearth best practices.

UX Deep Dive Below

Usability Evaluation. Reviewed the Sundays site, found over 50 opportunities to increase usability and optimize the experience. In summary, the site was slightly unfocused and provided little relevant information or traditional navigation.

Competitor Analysis. Reviewed 12 competitor sites to find best practices and common design patterns. Learned specifically about the reliance on 'product quizzes' to get users into the purchase funnel.

Analysis Report. Wrote 40 page report simplifying competitor findings to help knowledge sharing as design ramped up. This type of report helps to guide the design and ensure there are guidelines to work within.

INSIGHTS

Enhance,

improve

and

optimize.

The focus was on product design rather than user research, which was refreshing. Armed with my evaluations I created a series of over 50 different designs in Figma. The design opportunities I tried to address are shown below.

Best Practices

To their credit, Sundays was following a lot of best practices. Through research I learned that most of their competitors followed a fairly similar formula to get people interested in their products:

Use interactive and informational components for quick information since most people stay on the site for an average of 13 seconds.
Ensure most primary calls to action navigated the user to the Product Quiz to get their pooch matched up with a food plan.
Use visualizations to simplify complex processes such as subscription models or how much to feed.
Concise storytelling was important because most people were bouncing from the site quickly.

Aesthetics Needed Updated

While look and feel is not the most important aspect of design, it can be valuable to improve. My task on these designs was to improve aesthetics as new branding was being developed in the following ways:

Encourage consistency in design as prior to this point it was designed with only a branding guide.
Ensure that text was clearly readable even when overlaying images.
Update the design elements so they appeared more modern and simplified.
Design functionality for interactive elements so it is clear and understandable.

Informational Components

One major issue with the old Sundays site was that there was limited product information for users to explore. This meant that the subscription model was unclear, product benefits were not offered and overall there was a lack of context.

During research, I saw a lot of process-centric 'Overview' and 'How it Works' components that I wanted to incorporate.
The other major type of component was to expound on the product benefits in a compelling way.
Considering order was also important as to ensure not overloading the user with too many ideas at once.

Information Architecture Help

The previous Sundays site was very scattershot. The order of information beyond the hero image was seemingly unconsidered. The research showed me the following:

Order of information is important and overall flow on the homepage should be carefully examined.
Ensure there is a page for a product details and it is easily acceessible in the primary navigation.
Ensure that the pages have clear headers and breadcrumbs where applicable.

UX Deep Dive Below

DESIGN

Collaborative product design, first and foremost.

Collaboration was key on this project. While there was a fair amount of autonomy, I wanted to ensure everyone had a voice for something as important as a redesign. This took the form of workshops and design sessions working on designs and functionality. I worked in Figma to conceptualize and eventually finalize the designs for development.

UX Deep Dive Below

THE NEW SITE

Sundays on steroids. Usability buff activated.

After the collaboration and design the new iteration was born. I felt good about helping to give users more information, context and functionality. The interface was cleaned up and had a modern look to it. Below are some solutions and how users benefit when they use them.

UX Deep Dive Below

DESIGN SOLUTION

Quiz Results Redesign

I designed a more streamlined but flexible Quiz Results screen. This version allows the user to select a recipe and a Subscribe and Save duration. This made setting up a subscription from checkout a snap.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Cancellation Flow

Sundays asked me to work on a cancel flow that had the goal of winning back customers when they tried to cancel a subscription. I learned the business needs and designed around 30 screens to support the process. It was complex but in the end it helps them retain business by providing alternates to canceling their subscription.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Shopping Cart

Assisted with optimizing the Shopping Cart page to increase usability. Helped with layout, informational breakdown and badging system.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Homepage Reorganization

Reorganization of components to better support user needs. The approach was to follow suit with competitors and strategically reveal product benefits through a series of informative components.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Interactive Components

Designed components with interactive, sliding panels and helpful information. The design practice was helpful to allow information to slowly unfold for the user while telling a story.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Product Detail Page

I designed a product detail page for the Sample offering. This was used in conjunction with the pop up modal and would direct the user to this page to select their recipe.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Informative Components

Components with simplistic but helpful information to simplify complex actions. People demand not to think and small components like this help reduce cognitive load or questioning.

DESIGN SOLUTION

'Sample' Pop Up

Counterintuitively the modal I designed below has been very impactful for Sundays. It pops up when a user is going to leave the site and has consistently performed well for months.

OUTCOMES

Stats and figures.

Measurable results after the new designs went live. A lot of these were pulled in from FullStory to help understand business impact as well as usability of the new designs.

UX Deep Dive Below

-11%

Reduction in abandonment after Sundays quiz flow.

+6%

Amount of winbacks resuling from the cancellation flow.

Product detail page activity after the redesign.

increases in subscriptions year over year.

WRAP UP

Sundays is Supercharged.

I worked on Sundays website all through 2022 and into 2023 and loved every moment. The design was fun and the collaboration was refreshing. I'm glad to see them implementing some of my ideas and improving the experience overall. They have continued to improve things and implement usability best practices.
‍

UX Deep Dive Below

Design Tasks Completed

Designs, Prototypes and UI

Increase in Site Users

Percentage Sample Boost

+11%

Implement Best Practices

Fixed

Update Aesthetics

Fixed

Informational Components

Fixed

Address Info Order

Fixed

Thank you for reading!

ABOUT The Author

Justin Watts

Sr. UX Lead, Usability Fanatic and Avid Record Collector

Product Design. UX Strategy. User Research.

Justin Watts is a user-centered designer with a decade of experience. He attended Kent State University and received a Master of Science degree in User Experience Design. He has worked on UX projects in enterprise, agency and startup environments. He has spoken a various usability engagements and is active in the UCD community.

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OLD SITE

Before

Outdated interface, excessive links, missable search, unclear icons, inconsistent navigation and visual hierarchy.

NEW SITE

After

Updated interface, streamlined navigation, primary calls to action, clear links, global search, message board, new functionality.

THANKS!

Thanks for checking out this case study! Please feel free to keep reading if you like.

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