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This project was created for an entrepreneur — a talented young woman who began making pottery at home and selling her creations on Instagram. As her passion and business grew, she wanted to expand her reach by launching an app to showcase and sell her unique handcrafted products. The goal was to design a simple, elegant e-commerce experience that reflects her artistry while making it easy for customers to browse, learn about, and purchase her pottery. The app needed to capture the personal touch of handmade goods and support her growing brand with a smooth, user-friendly shopping journey.
The client, a passionate artisan, started her pottery business less than two years ago. Until now, she relied solely on Instagram to build her brand and sell her products. While this platform helped her reach early customers, it had clear limitations in expanding her market.
User Personas
Journey Map
Digital Wireframes
Mood Board
Clickable Prototypes
To help the client grow her business beyond Instagram, we designed a mobile app that allows her to showcase and sell her handcrafted pottery in a safe, reliable shopping environment. The app provides customers with a secure and seamless shopping experience, building trust that’s often missing when purchasing through social media platforms. It also promotes the client’s brand story, highlighting the artistry and personal touch behind pieces. This solution bridges the gap between social media exposure and a professional e-commerce presence, helping the business reach new customers.
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Over the course of two weeks, I followed a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach to ensure the app truly met users’ needs. We focused on how shoppers want to recreate enjoyable, personalized shopping experiences tailored to their tastes using a User-Oriented Design process. Together with the client, we brainstormed and planned multiple solutions, guided by continuous user testing and feedback. These iterative cycles helped us refine the concept and interactions. Finally, we validated the design through usability tests, then created a polished, high-fidelity interactive prototype, ready to delight customers and support the client’s growing brand.
The first step was meeting with the client to establish a shared understanding of the product’s MVP and target audience. Based on this alignment, we decided to build a simple app that would allow users to easily browse and shop the artisan’s unique pottery collection. With the target audience defined, we launched a survey to gather insights about their shopping habits, preferences, and pain points. This data helped us better tailor the app’s features and design to meet real user needs.
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Coral
Influencer | Age: 33 | San Diego, CA
Motivation
Coral has recently moved into her new home and is shopping for new kitchen appliances as well as artwork to display her true spirit to her guests. She really likes to help small businesses because she is an influencer herself.
Frustrations
Finding a product and design that she adores,
as well as ensuring that the standard is appropriate within her budget
Saba
Party Planner| Age: 42 | San Francisco, CA
Motivation
Saba works for a catering company as an event planner. She is in charge of ensuring that every event runs smoothly. She is well-known for her design skills and use of unusual materials. She is enthusiastic about her work and delights in seeing her customers happy.
Frustrations
Purchasing handmade and one-of-a-kind items should be cost-effective so that the business can make a profit.
Through research and user interviews, several key needs and pain points became clear:
1.Safe shopping experience: Customers want to feel secure when making purchases, especially when transitioning from social media to a dedicated app.
2.Speed and ease: Users prefer apps that are quick and intuitive to use, minimizing friction in browsing and checkout.
3.Free delivery: Offering free shipping is a strong motivator for buyers and influences purchase decisions.
4.Social proof: Positive feedback and reviews greatly increase users’ trust and willingness to buy.
5.Transparency: Users expect clear, detailed product information to make informed choices without surprises.
Customer journey maps are powerful tools that help us step into the user’s shoes, uncovering their motivations, attitudes, and frustrations along the way. For this project, the journey map highlighted key pain points and barriers users face when shopping for handcrafted products online — from discovering the brand to completing a purchase. By visualizing these moments, we gained a clearer understanding of where users experience friction or hesitation. This insight guided design decisions focused on smoothing the path, removing obstacles, and building loyalty through a seamless, enjoyable shopping experience.
With a clearer understanding of my users and the market, it was time to turn user stories into tangible ideas. These stories helped me prioritize the key features of the Pezhal app, ensuring the design focused on what mattered most to users. I began sketching out initial concepts, mapping screens, layouts, and core interactions that would create a smooth and engaging shopping experience. These early sketches laid the groundwork for digital wireframes and set the stage for user testing and iteration.
Building on the initial sketches, I created digital wireframes to bring the app’s structure and flow into a more concrete form. These wireframes focused on clarity and usability, ensuring users could navigate the app intuitively and complete tasks efficiently. Through multiple iterations and feedback sessions, I refined the layout, simplified navigation, and optimized key screens, from product browsing to checkout. This process helped solidify the foundation for the final UI design and interactive prototype.
When it came to defining Pezhal’s brand identity, everything started with our target audience. Understanding who they are, what they like, and how we want them to feel was key. We aimed to create a brand that feels accessible and welcoming to everyone, whether they’re out enjoying a Saturday afternoon bar crawl or taking in Shakespeare in the Park. One core insight stood out: no matter how different our users may be, when they come to Pezhal, they’re all seeking a pleasant shopping experience. This became the heart of our mood board, guiding the colors, textures, and imagery that evoke warmth, comfort, and simplicity.
When selecting colors for the app, my priority was clear: let the event hero photos and the pottery products take center stage. I avoided flashy or overly bright hues that could distract users from the main content, the beautiful handmade pottery. Instead, I grounded the palette in natural, earthy tones inspired by soil and nature, reflecting the material and artistry behind each piece. This approach creates a calm, organic atmosphere that complements the products and invites users to explore without overwhelm, making the shopping experience both visually pleasing and focused.
The intention behind the typography choices was to contrast the traditional with the modern. Using Fawkwang, we aimed for a typeface that feels comfortable, elegant, and welcoming, while also embracing a cool, urban vibe with a subtle hint of grunge. To complement this, we incorporated Castellar 46, Segoe UI, and Inter 13, each adding their own personality and readability to the overall design, balancing style with clarity.
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I designed the logo myself, drawing inspiration from both the app’s nature and its name. “Pezhal” means “new sprouts” in Persian, symbolizing growth and fresh beginnings. To reflect this meaning visually, I crafted the letter “P” to resemble a sprout stalk, using natural, earthy colors that echo the brand’s connection to pottery and nature. The logo embodies the spirit of renewal and creativity, perfectly capturing the app’s mission to bring handcrafted artistry to a wider audience.
Once I had the first draft of the interactive prototypes ready, I used Usabilla to bring them to life and created a formal usability test centered around five key user stories. The feedback from users was mostly positive, they found the app intuitive and engaging. However, a few users did express some confusion and offered valuable suggestions for improvement.
Moving forward, I’m carefully analyzing this feedback to prioritize changes and new features that will enhance the user experience in upcoming versions, ensuring the app becomes even more seamless and enjoyable.
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Adding more details on shopping screen helps to follow the steps better
Spell checking
Checkout screen is empty
Add some animation when screens are changing
Give more details on products
It seems fast and easy to folloW
It’s easy to navigate
Spell checking
It’s better to move the logo to top of the page on last screen
Second shopping bag feature is confusing
I used Usabilla to render the first prototypes interactive, and I wrote a systematic usability test for the five user stories
RESULTS
Feedback from users was mostly positive overall. A few users expressed confusion and some suggestion .
Going forward, I'm closely examining what other changes and features would improve the upcoming versions.
Adding more details on shopping screen helps to follow the steps better
Spell checking
Checkout screen is empty
Add some animation when screens are changing
Give more details on products
It seems fast and easy to folloW
It’s easy to navigate
Spell checking
It’s better to move the logo to top of the page on last screen
Second shopping bag feature is confusing
After gathering feedback from usability tests, we dove into analyzing the results using affinity diagrams to uncover key themes and pain points. This structured approach helped us synthesize the main findings clearly and prioritize the most impactful improvements. With these insights, we iterated on the concept, refining the prototype to better meet user needs and expectations. The upgraded prototype reflects a more intuitive flow, clearer interactions, and enhanced usability, bringing us closer to delivering a truly seamless shopping experience.
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