ZGallerie Redesign
Empowering customers with a seamless, intuitive shopping experience to help them find the products they love
Z Gallerie, a leading U.S. home furnishings and décor retailer, achieved record-breaking sales, conversion, and revenue growth in 2020 and 2021, driven by a renewed focus on user experience and a strategic site redesign.
My Role
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Art Direction, UX/UI Lead, Wireframing, Prototyping, Design System, A/B Testing
Client
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zgallerie.com
CSC Generation
Team
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Led Ecommerce Design Team and collaborated with Developers and Stakeholders
The Challenge
Z Gallerie, a luxury home furnishings brand, needed to modernize its ecommerce experience while transitioning to a new platform. The existing site had outdated design patterns, slow performance, and a disjointed content strategy, which contributed to cart abandonment and poor mobile conversions.
My team was tasked with redesigning the end-to-end ecommerce experience to reflect the brand’s luxury aesthetic, simplify navigation, and increase conversions, within a tight replatforming timeline.
UX Leadership
As the creative lead, I owned the visual and UX strategy across the ecommerce redesign.
This included:
- Sitewide UX architecture
- UI design systems and component library
- Wireframes, page flows, and user testing
- Leading creative sprints with cross-functional teams
- Aligning design goals with replatform constraints
Approach
The redesign process was iterative, collaborative, and data-driven.
1. Audit & Research
We started with a content and UX audit and mapped pain points for navigation, product discovery, and checkout flow. Google Analytics + Hotjar insights highlighted key friction areas (especially on mobile), including:
- Poor filtering on PLPs
- Confusing product detail page layouts
- Inconsistent promotional messaging
- Slow load times and heavy asset use
We also reviewed direct competitors, such as CB2, Pottery Barn and West Elm, and emerging trends in home decor ecommerce and best UX practices for baseline inspiration.
2. Wireframing & IA Restructure
Taking user insights into consideration, we restructured the site’s information architecture to create more intuitive product hierarchies and filter logic. The key goals for the site were:
- Clarifying core product categories
- Reducing cognitive load through simplified navigation
- Streamlining promotional and seasonal messaging
We designed low fidelity wireframes using Sketch for the homepage, PLPs, PDPs, and for the checkout experience.
3. Iterative Prototyping & User Testing
We built high fidelity prototypes and tested them in short, focused rounds with internal users and A/B testing with Google Optimize. This allowed us to:
- Validate changes to filtering, image hierarchy, and copy tone
- Test placement of trust elements (returns, shipping, etc.)
- Refine mobile-specific behavior (sticky nav, scroll depth)
Insights from each round were actioned upon, into the next sprint which enabled us to evolve the design system in real time while remaining on track for the deadline.
Redesign and updated UI
The updated UI leaned into Z Gallerie’s elevated brand voice, pairing clean typography and soft neutrals with bold photography and editorial style layouts. We created a reusable modular component system using Sketch, Contenful and Shogun for seasonal campaign pages, promotions, landing pages, and product storytelling.
The redesign enabled us to seamlessly launch and test several new marketing campaigns including our successful Z Gallerie Design Services program, as well as Z Pet, Z Babie and Citizens Pay.
Results + Impact
Post-launch results (within first 90 days):
- +22% mobile conversion rate
- +15% average time on site
- -18% bounce rate on PDPs
- Streamlined creative handoffs through shared component library
- Marketing team enabled to self-build new landing pages via modular CMS
Within a year of relaunching the rebranded ecommerce site, we saw significant conversion and revenue growth, and acquired new customers. 2020 and 2021 saw a lift in sales of 23% and 21% respectively, surpassing forecasts. We saw site sessions increase by 29% and AOV lifted by 5%.
Takeaways
This project reinforced the power of iterative testing in high-stakes, fast paced environments. Small UX decisions, that were tested and validated, had notable impact on performance and brand reputation. The modular design approach also future proofed Z Gallerie’s content workflows, making the experience as scalable as it is beautiful.
