Birdsnest: UX-Led Site Redesign & Optimisation

Driving measurable results through UX-led improvements across key shopping journeys.

At a glance

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Project
Birdsnest UX-led Site Redesign & Optimisation
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Role
UX Designer
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Timeline
2020 – 2022
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Tools
Adobe XD, Hotjar, Google Analytics, New Relic
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Users
Fashion-forward online shoppers, mobile-first users, Birdsnest customer support teams
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Responsibilities
UX research & strategy, UI design, wireframing, prototyping, stakeholder facilitation, accessibility design, developer collaboration

Project highlights

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UX-led site evolution

Phased redesign approach driven by research, not a one-time overhaul.

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Insights-driven decisions

Combined analytics, surveys, and support feedback to guide design priorities.

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Mobile-first navigation

Simplified menu and layout for easier mobile access and use.

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Performance & Conversion gains

Cut mobile load times by 2.5s and increased mobile conversions by 21%.

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Accessible, cohesive design

Refreshed colours and components for better accessibility and consistency.

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Cross-team collaboration

Partnered with devs, agency, and stakeholders for aligned, feasible delivery.

View Birdsnest website

Project Summary

I worked across several key projects at Birdsnest as a UX designer, contributing to a series of improvements aimed at making the site faster, easier to navigate, and more accessible for customers. Rather than a single redesign, this was an iterative, UX-led approach to optimising the entire shopping experience—especially for mobile users.

My role focused on research, user-centred design, and frontend collaboration, working closely alongside internal developers and an external e-commerce agency, as well as product leads and stakeholders. Together, we delivered significant performance gains and UX enhancements across core areas like navigation, product selection, and checkout.

Problem or Opportunity

The Birdsnest site had grown organically over time, with new features and updates added as needed—but without a cohesive strategy for mobile users or performance optimisation. While the desktop experience offered rich functionality, many of these features weren’t easily accessible on mobile devices, where an increasing share of the customer base was shopping.

Navigation was unclear, key features like wishlists were difficult to find, and page load times—particularly on mobile—were slow enough to impact the shopping experience. Combined, these issues created friction across the entire customer journey: discovery, selection, and checkout.

The opportunity was to take a holistic, UX-led approach to improving the site’s performance, usability, and accessibility—removing obstacles, clarifying pathways, and ensuring that mobile customers could enjoy the full feature set without compromise.

Research & Insights

Our approach to research combined quantitative data from analytics and heatmaps with qualitative insights gathered through user surveys and internal feedback.

We used tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar heatmaps, and New Relic performance monitoring to understand how customers were navigating the site, where they were dropping off, and which areas of the mobile experience were causing frustration. A customer survey also highlighted one of the top issues: many users felt the site was difficult to use on a mobile device, citing poor wayfinding and slow loading as key barriers.

Internally, we engaged with the customer service team and product owners to surface additional insights—particularly around common support queries and features that customers struggled to find on their own.

Together, these findings helped us pinpoint the key areas for improvement:

Improved performance and faster page load times, especially on mobile
Faster access to popular features like Wishlists and order tracking
Simplified, mobile-first navigation
Clearer pathways through product discovery and checkout

These insights shaped the design decisions that followed and ensured that improvements were grounded in real user needs.

Design Process

This was not a single redesign project but a strategic, phased approach to improving the Birdsnest site section by section—guided by UX research, business priorities, and customer feedback.

We began by identifying key areas of the site that needed improvement, including:

Homepage and category pages
Product pages, outfits, and capsules
Wishlist and account management
Style Profile questionnaire and recommendations page
Returns process

Alongside these core areas, we also addressed site-wide elements:

Mobile-first navigation, header, and footer redesign
A refreshed colour palette and accessible component design system
Consistent UX patterns for interactions, messaging, and layout

The strategy was to focus on one section at a time, allowing us to deliver improvements iteratively while ensuring cohesion across the site. Each redesign phase was informed by customer data, internal feedback, and usability best practices.

As the UX designer, I led wireframing and prototyping using Adobe XD, facilitating design reviews and presenting interactive prototypes to internal stakeholders and business owners. I held regular stakeholder meetings throughout each phase to review progress, gather feedback, and secure sign-off from the business.

Throughout the process, I collaborated closely with both internal developers and an external e-commerce agency to ensure technical feasibility, smooth handover, and a cohesive user experience across the site.

Prototyping, usability feedback, and accessibility were baked into the process at each stage, ensuring that improvements were not only visually cohesive but also easy to use and performant across devices.

Outlook & Impact

The phased, UX-led redesign delivered measurable improvements across key parts of the Birdsnest site, particularly for mobile users—where customer engagement and conversion were most impacted by the previous experience.

Key outcomes included:

Improved mobile page load time by 2.5 seconds, significantly enhancing usability and reducing drop-off rates
Achieved a 21% uplift in mobile conversion rates, demonstrating clear commercial impact from UX improvements
Enabled full feature parity between mobile and desktop, giving mobile shoppers seamless access to key tools like Wishlists and order tracking
Simplified navigation and site structure, helping customers more easily discover products and explore the full range of offerings
Improved accessibility and visual consistency through a refreshed colour palette and shared design system, supporting a more inclusive user experience
Notable reduction in support queries related to product discovery and feature use, with positive feedback from both customers and internal teams

Beyond these tangible metrics, the redesign also helped establish a more structured, UX-led design practice within the business—introducing clearer processes for user-centred decision-making and collaboration between design, development, and stakeholders.

Reflections

This project reinforced the power of iterative, user-centred design—and the importance of taking time to understand where the real friction points lie, rather than jumping straight into solutions.

One of the biggest lessons was that meaningful UX work doesn’t always come from a complete redesign. By breaking the work into focused, well-scoped phases, we were able to deliver consistent improvements that had a real and measurable impact, while avoiding disruption to the live site.

It also reminded me how valuable it is to maintain strong relationships between design, development, and the business. Regular check-ins, open communication, and collaborative problem-solving helped build trust across the teams and ensured that each piece of the project stayed aligned with both customer needs and business goals.

Finally, this work highlighted that accessibility and performance are not extras—they’re core to the user experience. Prioritising these elements from the start not only improved usability but also directly contributed to commercial success.

Personal Insights

This project gave me a broader, more holistic view of how a business operates across its many departments—from warehouse and customer service through to marketing, buying, and technology. It reinforced how deeply connected design decisions are to the day-to-day work of these teams, and the value of bringing their perspectives into the process.

I also gained meaningful exposure to a diverse range of users—not only the customers themselves but also the internal teams who support them. Engaging directly with staff and hearing feedback through customer service channels helped me better understand the full ecosystem of the user experience and the importance of designing with that bigger picture in mind.