Kim’C Market

RoleUX Research, UX Design, Team Lead

Team
Samantha Guzman
Elizabeth Ward
Nouman Wajid
Joee Cortes
Roshan Pereira

DurationFebruary - April 2025 (2 months)

Kim’C Market is an online Korean grocery store that sells premium Korean products. This project focuses on enhancing the user experience by identifying friction points in the shopping journey and implementing data-driven improvements to increase conversion rates and decrease bounce rate.

I led the team of 6 and worked as a main UX researcher and UX designer - plan and conduct user testing sessions, analyzing data, and communicate with the client.

Overview

Problem

Kim’C Market faces several critical performance challenges: a high bounce rate of 58.04%, a low conversion rate of just 1.76%, and unclear insights into retention behaviors.

Outcome

By conducting mixed-method evaluation combining in-person and remote user research, we identified key friction points and developed targeted UX improvements centered around product discovery, cart abandonment, and checkout abandonment.

Final delierables to the client include 10 most prioritized findings and recommendations based on UX principles and Google Material Design.

Final Design

Research

Business Challenge

Kim’C Market, a premium Korean grocery e-commerce platform, faced critical performance issues that limited its growth potential:

Low Conversion Rate of 1.76% indicating that a significant portion of visitors were not completing purchases
High Cart Abandonment Rate of 81.6% where users abandoning their carts
Bounce Rate of 58.04% bounce rate suggesting that over half of the visitors left the site after viewing only one page

Diary Study

We conducted a diary study to understand the shopping experience of first-time and returning users on Kim’C Market. Day 1 focused on the mobile experience, capturing initial impressions and navigation challenges, while Day 2 examined the desktop experience to compare user behavior and pain points.

Participants documented their thoughts, frustrations, and successes as they navigated the platform, providing valuable qualitative insights into their decision-making processes.

Problem Area Identification

Our research revealed critical usability and business challenges across the user journey. Users faced difficulties with product discovery, experienced hesitation during checkout due to unclear pricing and delivery information, and frequently abandoned their carts. These issues directly impacted key performance metrics, including a low conversion rate (1.76%), high cart abandonment (81.6%), and elevated bounce rate (58.04%).

Eye Tracking Heatmap

To observe real-time user behavior, we conducted eye-tracking sessions using Tobii at our pop-up store, testing both mobile and desktop experiences. Heatmap data revealed where users focused their attention, highlighting overlooked CTAs, poor visual hierarchy, and areas causing hesitation—especially during product browsing and checkout.

Following each session, we conducted brief interviews to gain context behind their actions, uncovering specific frustrations around out-of-stock visibility, pricing clarity, and trust in delivery information. These combined insights directly informed design improvements to enhance engagement and reduce drop-offs.

Click-through

Using Microsoft Clarity, we analyzed click maps and scroll maps from both pop-up participants and real end users.

Microsoft Clarity revealed key user friction points like below:

Package Protection Fee: Often missed in cart, noticed later at checkout; caused confusion but didn’t always stop purchases.
Cart Re-checking: Users returned to product pages after adding to cart to review details before deciding.
Out-of-Stock Items: Frequently appeared in featured sections, leading to repeated frustration.
Promotion Pop-ups: Blocked navigation on mobile, dismissed quickly, often reappearing.
Misclicks: Users accidentally added frequently bought together items, then removed them.

Design Process

UX Principles

Our design decisions were grounded in core UX frameworks to ensure usability, clarity, and consistency across the site experience. We referenced:

Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics to identify interface-level issues
Nielsen’s 5 Attributes of Usability to guide evaluation of current pain points and redesign priorities
UX Laws to simplify navigation, optimize decision-making, and reduce cognitive load

AI Integration

To support insight synthesis and strategic decision-making, we integrated ChatGPT into our internal workflow—not for content generation, but as a tool to help bridge complex user findings with relevant UX principles and design patterns. Our goal was to reduce surface-level conclusions and uncover deeper root causes behind user behaviors.

By incorporating human validation, collaborative critique, and context-aware prompting, we reduced hallucinations and ensured the AI’s input served as a meaningful layer in our insight-to-design process.

Prioritization

Severity scale was used to determine which issues to address first among all user pain points. We also assessed how consistently each issue appeared across different research methods - including eye-tracking, diary studies, interviews, Microsoft Clarity recordings, Shopify and Google Analytics.

Solution

Mobile UI Layout

Mobile layout and navigation interruptions cause visibility and interaction friction during cart review.

UX Principles

Usability: Efficiency, Errors
Heuristic: Visibility of System Status, Error Prevention, Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
UX Law: Fitts’s Law, Tesler’s Law

Recommendation:
Implement responsive design with sticky banner on top or bottom to minimize the content overlapping.

Visual Content Gap

Visual clutter and missing product details disrupt exploration and reduce clarity.

UX Principles

Usability: Satisfaction, Learnability, Efficiency
Heuristic: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design, Visibility of System Status, Match Between System and the Real World
UX Law: Von Restorff Effect, Fitts’s Laws

Recommendation:
Curate images that highlight key features, variations, and close-ups of the product's texture and craftsmanship.

Filtering System Gap

Users struggle with filtering due to underdeveloped tools and unclear category logic.

UX Principles

Usability: Efficiency, Learnability
Heuristic: Flexibility and Efficiency of Use, Recognition Rather than Recall, Match Between System and the Real World
UX Law: Hick’s Law, Tesler’s Law

Recommendation:
Incorporate persistent segmented buttons or filter chips at the top of the product list to allow quick toggling between categories or availability options.

Hidden Fee Visibility

Users are confused or surprised by package protection fees, which are often surfaced too late.

UX Principles

Usability: Learnability, Efficiency, Satisfaction, Errors
Heuristic: Visibility of System Status, Consistency and Standards, Error Prevention Help and Documentation
UX Law: Jakob’s Law, Hick's Law, Tesler's Law

Recommendation:
Show package protection fees early using a clear card or banner to avoid confusion.

Product Differentiation

When product details and differences aren’t emphasized clearly, users become overwhelmed and delay decision-making.

UX Principles

Usability: Learnability, Memorability, Satisfaction
Heuristic: Consistency and Standards, Recognition Rather than Recall, Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
UX Law: Miller’s Law, Von Restorff Effect

Recommendation:
Make key product differences visually prominent using recognizable tags or visual cues.

Out-of-Stock Visibility

Users feel misled and waste time when out-of-stock status is only revealed after interacting with a product.

UX Principles

Usability: Errors, Efficiency, Learnability
Heuristic: Visibility of System Status, Error Prevention, Consistency & Standards
UX Law: Jakob’s Law, Hick’s Law

Recommendation:
Disable unavailable product interactions. Or move products that are sold out to the bottom of the page.

Outcome

Results

Kim’C Market has begun implementing several of our key UX recommendations, focusing on product discovery, checkout clarity, and overall user engagement. Initial observations indicate positive changes in user behavior, with the client reporting progress toward a more streamlined and user-centered shopping experience.

There were, however, certain limitations during the project. As Shopify does not support a native mobile app, our research and design efforts focused primarily on the web platform. Additionally, the client introduced third-party tools (such as a recommendation system and stock indicators) during the project timeline, which introduced external variables that limited the ability to isolate the direct impact of our UX recommendations.

Key Takeaways

Working on a real-world project like Kim’C Market was an incredibly valuable experience that pushed me to grow both personally and professionally. As a team lead, I developed strong skills in client communication from a UX perspective, while also honing my collaboration and time management abilities by guiding a team of five.

Additionally, I gained hands-on experience with key tools and methodologies, including:

Shopify Plus: Learned how to navigate and optimize a Shopify-based e-commerce platform, understanding its limitations and customization opportunities.
Google Analytics: Gained insights into user behavior patterns, bounce rates, conversion funnels, and device-specific engagement.
Microsoft Clarity: Utilized click-through maps, scroll maps, and session recordings to identify friction points and user interaction trends.
Heatmap Eye Tracking: Conducted in-person testing with Tobii, analyzing real-time user focus and attention to validate design decisions.

These tools helped me build a data-driven approach to UX design, blending qualitative insights with measurable quantitative analysis.

Woohee Byun

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