Reimagining the digital pen shopping experience
Uniball’s e-commerce platform was underperforming due to poor product discoverability and limited comparison capabilities. Shoppers struggled to evaluate pens based on critical attributes like ink type, point size, and price, leading to friction, decision fatigue, and abandoned sessions. I was responsible for designing a scalable product browsing and comparison experience that reduced friction, improved decision confidence, and enabled faster, more informed purchases across the catalog.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Client
uniball
Timeline
6 months
Problem
Users struggled to confidently evaluate products on Uniball’s site, leading to hesitation, frustration, and abandoned sessions. Two core issues emerged: - Difficulty accessing meaningful product specifications - No way to compare products side-by-side during evaluation
Solution
Help customers make informed purchase decisions by integrating a product comparison tool into the product listing experience.
Ideation
While adding a product comparison tool seemed straightforward, it raised a another question about the overall shopping experience: should we rethink how products are listed on the page, or introduce comparison without disrupting an existing, familiar layout?
What if we used the existing product listing?
Pros
– Faster build – Preserves user familiarity – Minimizes disruption to the purchase flow
Cons
– No comparison option – Keeps additional cognitive load by using hover buttons – Takes up valuable page real estate
What if we redid the design to add the comparison functionality but kept familiar patterns?
Pros
– Save page space – Makes key product attributes easier to scan and evaluate – Keeps user familiarity
Cons
– Slower build – Slight change to user behavior on card
Decisions
After assessing constraints and decision implications, we chose a comparison focused layout based on the following.
Decision support over familiarity
Enabling side-by-side comparison helped users make more confident choices for high-consideration products.
Visibility over discoverability
Making primary actions and comparison controls always visible reduced reliance on hover interactions and lowered cognitive load.
Long-term scalability over short-term speed
Investing in a more flexible layout created a foundation for future filtering and comparison features.
Iteration
I built a simple prototype and shared it with customers from our existing uniball list to gather early feedback. Insights from these sessions informed the next round of design iterations and helped us refine the comparison experience.
User Feedback
Feedback from our users showed me that we were close to what they were looking for, but we still needed to make the visualization of what was being compared more visible, especially if the products had scrolled out of view. I added to the bottom drawer, cards of the products selected as well as empty states to show how many products they could select to compare. I also made the drawer collapsable to hide while the user searched the site.
Results
Launching product comparison marked an important step toward improving product discovery and decision-making on Uni-ball’s ecommerce experience. While there were opportunities to continue refining the experience, the initial release demonstrated clear gains in usability, speed, and customer confidence.
Faster access to product information
Time to locate key product specifications decreased by 14.75 seconds.
More efficient product comparison process
Customers compared products 164% more efficiently, reducing friction during evaluation.
Higher customer satisfaction
NPS increased from 7.13 to 8.63, reflecting improved confidence and overall experience.