Online shop design is more than a nice grid for products. It means translating the feeling of a brand into a journey that people use without thinking. As Senior Art Director, I led the design of dm-drogerie markt’s first online shop, which launched on dm.de in July 2015.
I was the disciplinary lead for a team of seven art directors. Many decisions from back then I still consider right, some I would make differently.
- Online shop design means simplifying paths first.
- The brand shows in clarity and tone, not in decoration.
- Design, technology and information architecture belong at one table.
- Content during the migration is as important as the new design.
Table of contents
Online shop design: simplicity before staging
A drugstore lives from quick shopping. Customers usually know what they are looking for. Whoever designs an online shop for these customers has to shorten paths above all: search, category, product, basket. Every additional step costs patience.
Good online shop design therefore starts with the question of what the customer wants to do next on every page. Only when that answer is clear do layout, images and colour come into play. In this order, the shop feels calm and fast at the same time, and the brand has room to show itself in the details. That is the lesson from dm that I take into every new digital project.
The Nielsen Norman Group has been collecting research for years on where users fail in online shops, from unclear categories to missing product information (see here: Nielsen Norman Group, E-commerce). Many of these mistakes happen when design is taken more seriously than orientation.
The brand in the shopping journey
Still, an online shop has to look like the brand. At dm, this was a question of tone and order, not of effects. Friendly, clear language, readable product images and a structure that feels familiar if you know the store. The brand becomes tangible in use, not in ornament.
From this I took a rule that applies to any art direction: design serves the user’s decision first. More on this in the post Art direction: the attitude behind the image.
Design and technology at one table
The shop was created in close exchange with front-end developers and information architects. I presented the creative concepts directly to the client and at the same time clarified with the developers what was feasible. This double role was demanding, but it saved many loops.
An underestimated part was the migration of content. We developed a strategy so that all digital content was transferred completely and correctly at launch. A new design with missing content would have been worse for customers than the old one.
What I would do differently today
Today I would test with real users earlier, already with simple sketches instead of finished designs. And I would integrate content such as guides and care tips more strongly into the shopping journey, because it builds trust and sells at the same time.
A third point concerns measurement. From the start, I would define how we recognise the success of the online shop: how quickly customers find what they are looking for, how often they drop out and how often they come back. These few numbers help to decide design questions on facts instead of arguing about taste.
My conclusion on online shop design: it means showing respect for customers’ time. The best design is the one you hardly notice while shopping and still recognise.