These are the type of questions I ask myself at the beginning of pretty much any design project:

  • Who are we building this for? What audience do we want to attract? What do we want them to feel when seeing or interacting with this product? Inspired? Intrigued? Reassured? Satisfied? A sense of urgency? Etc. And how do we want that feeling to translate into action, what next step do we want them to take?

  • Where will this visual or product be seen? What kind of mental and/or physical state or space will the viewer be in when they see this? Have they sought us out or are we interrupting them? What competing elements or distractions might be present? Are there things we can do to mitigate or even leverage the context to best advantage?

  • What could prevent the viewer or user from fully engaging with this product, site or visual? Are there any barriers to comprehension or flow that we should anticipate and preemptively address ? Where might they struggle? Are we overwhelming them with options or content? How can we make this easier for them?

  • What are the project goals here, how can we serve the stakeholders as well as the users? What are we aiming for, what metrics will we use to measure success? We need to acknowledge that this isn’t just about serving the end user, as noble as that may seem.

  • How can we communicate our message or deliver the info required so that it not only gets it across with speed and clarity, but that the viewer ‘enjoys’ the experience? Can we delight them with some eye-catching visuals that give them a flash of fun or inspiration? Can we add an unexpected micro-interaction or animation somewhere that elicits a sudden smile? Can we go over and above delivering the essentials so that the viewer comes away from the interaction feeling good about it, even if they can’t put their finger on why?

Here’s my take on this:

Although I identify primarily as a visual designer, I have always operated with a UX mindset (even before we started calling it that).

That is because imo any designer worth their salt must be attuned to the needs and experience of the viewer/user in order to design with intention. At the same time, the needs and goals of other stakeholders cannot be discounted.

Peek inside my head

In 2015, I began a journey into product design, particularly Shopify premium theme design, and that presented me with a UX challenge I hadn’t had before: that of trying to design a product that would serve TWO very distinct users — not just different personas, but fundamentally different users with different end goals.

  • Always consider and research the actual need for new functionality or a new section type: just because they are asking for it doesn’t mean it’s worth building and including it in the next release (consider both ROI and whether or not we’re adding bloat or overwhelm).

  • Reduce any overly techie dev lingo and make sure we’re using intuitive, everyday language to describe a section, setting, value or control.

  • Are we giving them so much control over every detail that they will need to spend hours tweaking all the settings themselves? They may think they want that granular level of control but seeing a long list of 15+ settings that can be customized for every little element in the theme will quickly become overwhelming and could result in discouragement and a poor setup experience for the merchant.

  • Not directly part of the theme, but definitely a consideration I always advocated for - give them plenty of inspiration (show off the theme in different configurations as demo stores) and then show them how to achieve that by offering full documentation, video walkthroughs and ‘recipes’ for settings so they can replicate the look easily.

The Double UX Challenge of Shopify Theme Design

This was because a theme is a building tool full of different sections, functionality and customizable settings; it must appeal to and serve the needs of the shop merchant who will work with that tool; they were our direct customer to whom we were selling.

Meanwhile, there was still the traditional end user to consider; the site visitor, the merchant’s own customer, who would come to the online shop to browse or buy; and their experience there was just as important because it could make or break a sale.

So learned to balance both the wants and needs of the merchants with best practices for UX and UI design for web products. In short, we had to give the merchants enough “rope” (value, bells + whistles) that they would buy our themes, while ensuring that we didn’t give them enough rope to hang themselves (e.g. by overwhelming them with so many options that their site looked overworked, inconsistent and off-putting to their customers, who left without buying anything).

UX meets UI

The questions ultimately lead to visual interpretation and exploration, in the form of wireframes, hifi mocks, user walkthroughs and interactive prototypes. Figma, inVision and (back in the day) Balsamiq have been some of my fave tools in this regard.