Blendko
While most e-commerce sites limit users to pre-defined products, Blendko empowers customers to co-create items—apparel, home goods, and accessories—tailored to their unique tastes. The challenge was to integrate a powerful customization engine without disrupting an intuitive shopping experience.
Problem
Outcome
Discovery & Research
To ground our design in real needs, I conducted:
10 stakeholder interviews to define goals, technical constraints, and success metrics.
Competitive teardown of Zazzle, Printful and Redbubble to extract best-practice UI patterns.
User survey (n=200) + 15 interviews revealing that 70% of shoppers wanted a live preview during design and 65% valued a quick-start template path.
Personas & User Journeys
We mapped two journeys:
Smart London “Create from Scratch” flow: Explore → Design → Preview → Purchase
JuanMa Tim “Template Quick-Buy” flow: Browse templates → Minor edits → Add to cart
Information Architecture
Building a brand identity
To support the desgin, I created a brand guideline kit. It incldes tone of voice, logos, colors, fonts, icons, iages , and product vision.
Reflection & Next Steps
What Went Well
Designing for Blendko allowed me to deeply explore the intersection of creativity and usability. One of the most rewarding outcomes was seeing the customizer not just used—but loved. During user testing, participants praised how “empowering” it felt to design products from scratch and see updates live in real time. The 40% engagement rate validated this experience and proved our core value proposition. Additionally, the component-based design system enabled a smooth handoff to developers, minimizing back-and-forths and maintaining visual consistency across the product.
What I’d Improve Next Time
If I could revisit earlier phases, I’d:
Introduce performance benchmarks sooner during the prototyping stage
Prioritize an onboarding tutorial to ease first-time use
Simplify the creative flow further for non-design-savvy users
Next Steps
Optimize Performance:
Implement lazy-loading, streamline SVG handling, and compress assets to ensure smoother experiences on all devices.
Launch Community Gallery:
Enable users to publish their designs, get inspired by others, and build social engagement around creations.Contextual In-App Guidance:
Integrate tooltips, micro-tutorials, and an onboarding wizard to help both “Creative Emmas” and “Quick-Pick Pauls” navigate the platform confidently.Expand Accessibility:
Audit the platform for color contrast, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility to ensure inclusivity.