My Jewellery began in 2011 as a webshop selling handmade jewellery and grew into a chain of boutiques across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. The shop is still where most of it happens, and at peak trading it was under strain.
The work started with a discovery rather than a redesign: what was actually in the way, and what it was costing. A design system came out of that as one of the answers, and it became the part I took on.
Years of additions had accumulated. Tool after tool had gone onto the site over time, each sensible on its own, and together they had made it slow.
The design had drifted the same way. The same element existed in several versions across the shop - none of them wrong exactly, none of them the same. That’s a cost the shopper pays without ever naming it.
Research first: where people hesitated, where they doubled back, where a flow asked more of them than it needed to. The flows were then reworked around what that showed.
The design system was the durable half of the job. One set of components, so a decision made once holds everywhere and the inconsistencies cannot quietly return. Correcting them by hand would have lasted until the next release.
Nick truly understands design and the value of challenging traditional e-commerce boundaries
Mitchel Bakker, Domain Lead, SQLI
The shop came out of it redesigned, more by consequence than by intent - straightening the inconsistencies changed how the whole thing looked.
A new look was never the point. It was to take the obstacles out of a visit, and leave as little as possible standing between wanting something and buying it.
