Case Study on LIMEROAD

Case Study on LIMEROAD [ www.limeroad.com ] -­‐ Dinesh R. Vernekar

I feel LIMEROAD as a product setting a unique trend in Social Shopping, which is the new wave of ecommerce. Shopping being predominantly women’s domain, LIMEROAD taps the right target.

Wonderfully built LIMEROAD platform has unique modules and well designed product & features.

This is an effort to analyze the product & document some of my observations.

Starting with the first time user, when comes to the site gets a modal like following

One of the main heuristics from Jacob Neilsen is stated as follows User control and freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue.

This modal has no way to exit without signing up or signing in. First time user who has no idea of the product might want to browse through the product or get a brief idea of where is he enrolling himself. There are chances that the user might feel lost because he has no way to go then sign in or sign up ( which might be the use case ) and user might just close the browser tab and go away.

As a technical person I could find a way to get back to the home page without signing up J by clicking on sign in link on the modal which takes you to the signing modal which in tern has a close button letting you in to the site without signing up or signing in.

Also there is a line below Sign up & Get Rs. 250, which says “valid on a minimum purchase of Rs 1500 or more” which somehow feels disconnected and looks more like the label for the text box, which is an email, input box.

Signup process can be completed in the same modal which the user starts rather then taking him to a nude modal as shown above, here once user has entered something it kind of looks bare and not very informative.

Submit is a very generic button name, something very task centric like “Register” or “Complete Signup” or anything, which is relevant, would be better.

Also adding a feature of telling the user the strength of the password he has enter kind of builds more trust on the product. Not a compulsion but a good feature to add.

Mandatory fields asterisks are kind of old-­‐school way to represent, there can be better UI patterns for the same. Also their presence even after the user has entered the data in those fields kind of feel not necessary.

Home Page Look, features, colors and overall design looks amazing, however few points can enhance the look, UI and usability, some points I felt could help are as follows

-­‐ Pink icons on the top for the universal bar seem to be loud and draw a lot of attention ( which might be the use case ) colors, styling can be enhanced.

-­‐ All the icons on the sight might need to have a consistent look -­‐ Magazine link on the top universal bar repeats again in the menu below, which is not necessary, and also it seems to be the first item in the menu below.

-­‐ Magazine link on bottom menu bar is pink, and gives a feel of selected item in the menu, where as that’s not the case, its just a differently treated item in the same menu which kind a look inconsistent.

-­‐ Title feed and a small one line description below the menu seems unwanted and also occupies a lot of whitespace and pushes the actual interesting content below.

-­‐ Sorting with cost representation seems not too intuitive.

-­‐ Tabs bar grabs a lot of attention with the dark patch on the top of the page and also it has the same look as the top menu bar.

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There can be better and simpler UI patterns for refining the feed list instead of showing tab on a dark patch with no container associated with it.

There is again one more level of sorting below the tabs occupying a lot of space.

Most of the UI is built on a sharp design, this being targeted basically towards women, a soft, curvy, smooth design would be preferred Dropdown menu seem to be very mechanical and too rigid.

Some of the dropdown menus have scroll bars with in which is not a great UI practice and user friendly. There are amazing and very simplified UI patterns for the same.

A feature area just below the menu, highlighting some of the products, scrapbooks, and features would be a great idea. I guess earlier versions of the site use to show the magazine as a feature.

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Mouse over on the boxes has a dark translucent black color and instant mouse over kind of makes it look and feel of a jump and not very eye soothing, instead a slow transitioned feel would make it look appealing and user friendly.

Like it, Add to your collection, Share icon on top seems to have the same flow.

Clarity on the function for the above mentioned links on the boxes seem to necessary.

Comments dint seem to be real time, tried adding comment from one section, which was not refreshed for the same everywhere.

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Showing flipbook component as a static image is kind of miss leading, also it has the same user flow as rest of the boxes. Ideally they should be linked to that section of the magazine.

SHOP NOW is just a static button part of the whole image, which has no purpose and also can be miss leading.

Since this page has a lazy loading content, user can never access the footer and its links. At some point in lazy loading there can be load more kind a feature be introduced.

Drop shadow to the logo in the footer can be avoided; it takes away the charm of the brand and the logo.

Font spacing in the footer text seems a bit too close, making it a bit difficult in terms of readability.

Animated resizing of the search field on the top doesn’t add any value to the design as well as the product. It can have a better UI pattern and look and feel

Internal Pages

Inconsistency in terms of font styling, most of the menu links on top is ALLCAPS and the ones in the bottom sub menu are small letters.

Inconsistent dropdown menus. Each dropdown seem to look different then the other on same page.

Look, Design, color, feel, fonts, font styling seem to be very different in each.

Menus with no data in it should not be shown; some categories seem to have pull down menus without any data in it

Breadcrumbs can have a different feel to the level text which you are in, for example in below breadcrumb handbags and purses is the section is the active page, the text looks exactly same as bags and home, which two are links.

Also back to home seem to be unwanted when there is home in the breadcrumbs and also clicking on the logo takes one to the home page

Boxes seem to loose its container, as they are on the white background with not properly put drop shadows

Show similar button merges with the highlight background of the box, looks like an error.

Also when mouse over the box which makes the box gray with translucent black overlay on the top of the box, but the slideshow beneath it which I guess is of no use, neither the product slide show being of any use nor the multiple pictures of the product gets highlighted.

Showing disabled and not selectable items in the dropdown menu is not a good UI practice and also not of any value to the user.

There should be a way to close the notification apart from the time out period

Treatment of the user data populating boxes can be better

Learning aids are much better shown visually rather then the boxes with the text pointers

Too many fonts on the one page, to many variations of font sizes, styles etc. Some of the texts have readability issues because of their size and styling.

Inconsistent colors to the links overall through out the site

My account section seems like it needs a lot of design attention, in terms of data flow, UI, look and feel, consistency etc.

Suddenly introducing a two more colors to the buttons kind of seem not a good UI Practice. Eg. Two more colored buttons like grey button for select profile photo and green button for save and continue seem to be very inconsistent and abrupt.

The copy on the page can be bit more motivating for the user to put his pictures.

Also import from Facebook option can be given to get a social connect from this page.

On the product modal, recently viewed and suggested products have a conflicting UI which can be a bit confusing.

Overall this modal can be optimized in terms of look and feel, UI, UX and the data flow.

When verifying the email address through the mail link user can be directed to his dashboard or the home page instead of the one liner page like this