By far, I think the best thing I’ve ever made is my protosite for Arcadia Video Games. I see it as a culmination of everything I’ve learned as a designer so far.
I was in charge of every aspect of this design from conception to the final site, so all of the UX choices are my own. Let’s take a look at the pages I designed, and I’ll point out some of my favorite parts of the UI along the way.
Home Page
Nav/Information Architecture
This emerged by taking a look at how video game retailers organize their products. Initially, I was wondering if I should organize by Games/Systems/Accessories, and then the various platforms for each. But in talking with users, they clearly wanted it the other way around.
I realized that physical retailers don’t organize their games in one place, all systems in another, etc. Everything for each console is grouped together. It’s a familiar metaphor for users, and a format that most sites I researched follow.
Carousel & Tabs
I wanted to minimize scrolling for the user as much as possible, and I discovered using tabs and placing items on a carousel would be a good solution. Not sure this combination would work great for every retailer, since some may want to flood the home page with a ton of game boxes to attract more customers. Still, this works great for “Featured” or “Top-Selling” products.
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