Boatmart Case
Study
Boatmart is a platform that enables dealers to list their boats for sale, making it possible for anyone, whether businesses or customers, to buy from anywhere across the U.S. and Canada.
Problem
My Role
Suppose Jake, a boating enthusiast, visits Boatmart to buy his first speedboat. Excitement turns to frustration as he struggles with cluttered navigation, poor search filters, and unclear listings. Contacting sellers is confusing, and slow responses drive him away.
Fed up, Jake leaves a negative review:
"Terrible experience gave up and bought elsewhere."
Like Jake, many users face similar frustrations, leading to declining engagement and conversion rates.
My role was to solve user experience problems by understanding needs and behaviors. I focused on creating intuitive and engaging interfaces that enhance usability and satisfaction. Through research and testing, I collaborated with cross-functional teams to develop solutions that not only meet user expectations but also drive business goals.
Solution
To address the UX, it was essential to identify the user's pain points and understand both business and user needs. From there, we ideas to effectively resolve each of these pain points.
Team
As the sole designer for this project, I collaborated closely with the product manager and a team of 5 developers to bring our vision to life. Together, we successfully transformed our ideas into a reality.
Work flow
Identifying the problem is the first step. Issues come from user research or discussions with the product manager, affecting both user experience and business needs. Dissatisfied users lead to lower conversions and revenue. Each process is vital for success. I work closely with developers share my design vision and adjust if they face coding challenges.
Let's do some UX-audit!
Heuristic assessments are very crucial during redesign. Like here the main red flag was "no landing page" user needs landing page to understand the website first instead of jumping right into lot of information at once. Homepage should be clear and should’ve just necessarily details. Search bar needs to be more prominent, so it just catches the attention. We don’t need search result page as homepage.
Filters are not very helpful; they need to be sorted and easy to use.
We don’t want to break the flow of user by putting subscription section.
Globes aren't visible because of the blue background.
We need more than just feature listings.
Competitive analysis
Points to check
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Onboarding
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Filters
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Popularity
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Search
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Visual representation
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All the factors that make them popular
User interviews
User research is very critical part, like here the company couldn't afford users who can give interviews, or we could collect any data from end user, but we found some users through our database, and we sent an email to each of them.
Key touch points:
1. Create a script of questions to guide the user testing session.
2. Conduct 1 hour session witheach 5+ users
User Insights
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Confusing Visuals: Globes and the red button are noticeable but not helpful.
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Lack of Information: Missing details about boats and dealerships, especially on VDP.
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Difficult Navigation: Users struggle to find useful content despite easy-to-spot filters.
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High Selling Cost: Listing is expensive, and the process feels long.
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Limited Value: Suggestions are helpful, but the overall experience feels incomplete.
Internal stakeholders' interview
Stakeholder interviews are extremely valuable in understanding the strategy and business goals for the project. It was very important to know the view of the business side of the projects goals. As we could manage the interview of our internal stakeholders that are, product owner (Shawn Friesen), product manager(Paul Olson), previous designer ( Haley Ashcroft) and SEO team member (Ashley Shoop)
The subscription section shouldn't be shown if user already put the mail ID, as it was in the middle of SRP which hinder the flow.
Card sorting
I ran a card sorting session that was composed of members from our Sales and Support teams. I used this technique to determine which functionalities of the pages should stay, be relocated or be eliminated based on our platform’s information architecture and how much value it was adding on website.
User journey
Pain points
After researching and going through users' interviews, we got to know "buying" is little complicated and user couldn't find how to contact seller due to which they leave the website. There wasn't any heuristic approach due to which user experience wasn't very good.
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Complicated navigation
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No homepage to direct the users
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Insufficient and unclear product descriptions
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Ineffective SEO strategies
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Lack of relevant keywords
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An outdated or unappealing website design
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Lack of modern features and functionality
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Failing to analyze website analytics
Iterations
Do users need Homepage?
Understanding user and website needs from a business perspective is crucial once we identify the problem. I engaged in ideation, as considering the user perspective is an integral part of my design process. Visualizing the user's journey through the website greatly aids in creating effective user-centric designs. By asking questions such as why, what, where, and how, we concluded that users require a homepage with improved search functionality and authentication.
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Let fix the critical problem first!
Homepage design
Homepage design included lot of thought process, as right now SRP is homepage. I was sure search needs to be highlighted. So, adding a banner and highlighting the search bar made the website authentic.
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Making it as simple as it could, focusing on search bar more.
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Search bar is now more prominent, it’s on the banner which highlight it and give the user better experience.
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The banner is like an inceptive interface of the website which will create an engaging and immersive experience.
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featured listings is placed just after the boat types. User who is here without any clue what to buy needs featured listings.
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Boat types are just below the banner, which will help user to find directly what they’re looking for without struggling.
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Boats page
Previously we had a full description and good image for lifestyle boats, but not for other boats. After clicking on any boat, we will land to this page now. This page includes illustrated boat image and description for all the other boats like, power boat. Rest of the boat is placed at the bottom, so user don’t have to go back and find another one.
Before for lifestyle pages
After for all the other boats
Sticky filter and sort
Previously we didn't have sticky search, filter and sort. User experience get worse when there's a hindrance. We have sticky filter and sort now. User can search whatever they are looking for while scrolling. There wouldn’t be any hindrance. As a user work done smoothly is the only priority when we are using any website or product. Making everything smooth and easy is the only motive.
Iterate and iterate
It's very important to start with wireframes, after figuring out what's the problem. So, I made some wireframes show where different types of content will be placed on a page, organize information and guide the user's attention. focused on core user tasks and interactions, minimizing distractions from visual design details, ensuring that the product is designed with the end user in mind.
High fidelity mockups
Search result page
Open left filters is now available in search result page. Almost every e-commerce shopping website is doing this. I personally think as a user this is the best way to find whatever you looking for in more convenient way. Removed the blue colored search bar and placed clean looking search bar. Removed the blue background from the globes section.
Before
After
Vehicle description page
Description of vehicle is now below the vehicle images in vehicle description page. The vehicle description section is scrollable and email section is fixed. We have dealer gallery section and more boat section, if user wants to explore more. We have related categories which is again very helpful for user, as we want to make user experience more convenient as possible.
Before
After
Usability testing again & again
Handing over design is the final process but it's not final until the design has passed all the tests. I noted my objectives and goals then checked whether my design meet the goals. Team continues to meet every once a week and we used to test the website by ourselves and check the usability. Objectives were very clear:
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Improve user experience (UX) (making two tasks clear)
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Enhance visual appeal
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Update Content
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Improve Navigation and information architecture
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SEO Optimization (has to add some links like explore Boatmart in footer)
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Integrate New Features
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Accessibility Compliance
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Improve load time
Metrics
Design is not successful if it's not measurable. As with any part of a business, keeping a close eye on these allows you to see what part of the process is weak and needs attention.
1.Conversion rate
Conversion rate is a crucial metric for any ecommerce website. It measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. After homepage, we have total 20% of conversion rate.
2.Bounce rate
Lower the bounce rate, higher the conversion rate. There were more visits and user go through the website for more than 60 seconds and save boat's listing.
3. Users interaction
Engaging with audience is crucial for building a loyal following and increasing conversions. User interactions increases, so does the revenue.
Closing Notes
Finally, working on this project made me feel like I did something out of my comfort zone. I wanted to work on a Ecommerce project. Learning all from the scratch was a great experience and helped me understand the users’ perspective and how user-centric design is critical for any website. I feel like the process never ends; there is always room to improve and make it better.