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Happy Monkey Miami is a small business specializing in ethically made toys. This case study addresses the challenges of a poorly organized interface with limited flexibility, aiming to redesign it for better navigation, user control, and an overall seamless experience.
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I led the project in a team of three UX designers, where I focused on the website's development and user testing. During ideation, I collaborated with my team on user research and competitive market analysis.
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The existing interface limited user flexibility and lacked clear organization, making navigation and tasks difficult. This led to user frustration and emphasized the need for greater user freedom.
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Providing users with greater control and flexibility while improving the organization of content.
Discover
I began by doing a UX Audit by reviewing the website’s design, focusing on style, layout, and interface. After conducting individual heuristic evaluations, our team met to align on findings. We identified readability and navigation as the primary usability issues.
Market Research Insights
Created and distributed a survey focused on shopping habits for children’s products.
Shared the survey through personal networks and social media platforms.
Key findings:
Price and toy type were the most important factors in purchasing decisions.
Respondents showed a preference for in-person shopping over online when buying gifts for children.
User Research Insights & Pain Points
We interviewed individuals who regularly shop for children, including parents and family members of new parents. Their feedback revealed several consistent difficulties and expectations:
The homepage felt overwhelming, with too many elements and a lack of visual hierarchy.
Website organization was confusing, making it hard for users to browse or find what they needed.
There was no clear information about the physical store, including its location, hours, or in-store experience.
Price was a key factor in shopping decisions, with most participants having a median gift budget of $50.
Users expressed a strong preference for clear product categorization by age, type, and price.
A dedicated “Gift Ideas” section was a commonly requested feature to simplify decision-making.
Many users cared about the values of the business or store owner, seeking a more personal, trustworthy connection.
Define
Ideate
The insights guided us toward a design that simplifies navigation, aligns with shopper priorities, and builds trust through transparency.
Emotional Journey Map
Persona
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Based on our research, we created a user persona to represent Happy Monkey’s target market. Rachel is a 36-year-old health-conscious interior designer and mother of two young children. She prioritizes raising her kids and values educational, ethically sourced toys that support their development.
Rachel needs:
A website that reflects her values
Quick and easy access to trusted products
Simple navigation and convenient home shipping options
Creating Rachel’s persona helps us empathize with our users and design solutions tailored to their needs.
User’s Journey
The journey map for Happy Monkey shows Rachel’s key steps and challenges while shopping, helping improve the user experience. The emotional journey map reveals her feelings throughout, guiding a more empathetic design. Together, they highlight a user-focused approach that balances function and empathy
Journey Map
Userflow
After exploring the user’s pains, gains, emotional journey, and storyboard, we identified one main problem: helping users navigate the website to find specific products.
Our “How Might We” (HMW) solutions include:
Sectioning products by age, season, price, and brand
Keeping users informed about discounts, promotions, and seasonal items
Creating themed collections (e.g., Winter, Safari, Ocean) that mix brands under a common theme
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Site Map
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Click to ViewLo-Fi
For Happy Monkey, the lo-fi wireframes outlined key elements like product categories, search bar, and cart, without any colors or images. This allowed us to focus on layout, user flow, and information hierarchy before moving into visual design.
While the main case study focuses on the user experience and strategy behind Happy Monkey, I also developed a playful and cohesive visual direction to bring the brand to life. This includes a style tile, UI components, and high-fidelity screens that reflect the brand’s cheerful, parent-friendly tone.
Mid-Fi
Mid-fidelity wireframes for Happy Monkey helped define layout and core features—like product categories, search, and cart—before applying visuals. This step ensured functionality was solid before moving into high-fidelity design.
Validate
Prototype
We applied Jakob’s heuristics to improve the user experience:
User Control and Freedom: We gave users control by clearly organizing products and sorting them by age, type, and price.
Flexibility and Efficiency: We provided multiple pathways for users to find products, making navigation faster and more adaptable to different preferences.
These improvements resulted in a 75% success rate in user navigation during testing.
Next Steps
Make buttons responsive by adding hover effects to improve interactivity.
Collaborate with stakeholders to choose a more readable font style and color palette.
Conduct further research on competitors and user preferences.
Emphasize to stakeholders the importance of an ‘About Me’ section that highlights the company’s values, such as supporting women-owned and POC-owned businesses.
Conclusion
Clear communication of brand values and essential information, combined with intuitive navigation, is critical to earning user trust and driving engagement. Our design ensures shoppers feel confident and supported, creating a seamless experience that stands out in a crowded marketplace. Implementing these changes will be key to boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty.