Jewels by Mandy
This project aims to enhance the online shopping experience by optimizing product discovery, improving user engagement, and building trust through transparent product storytelling—supporting the business’s professional growth while preserving the small business values of exceptional customer service, handcrafted quality, and a personal touch
Role
UX Designer, Marketing Consultant
Industry
Jewelry Design & Services
Duration
1 month (ongoing)
Context
Jewels By Mandy began as an Etsy shop under the name “beyond2dazzle,” founded by Mandy Li. As the business grew, so did the need for a cohesive brand identity and a more professional online presence. I led the rebranding and designed a new e-commerce website from the ground up, using existing Etsy analytics and customer insights as the foundation. This project aimed to elevate the brand while maintaining its small business values—personal service, handcrafted quality, and customer trust.
I am the whole design, marketing, developer, and business team for Mandy.
For the month since I started this project, I've grown tremendously. Some of the key achievements include:
Implemented a design system and CMS infrastructure to ensure brand consistency.
Developed custom CSS to support creative flexibility and maintain visual coherence.
Enhanced website SEO, streamlined navigation, and optimized the user experience to drive customer acquisition and retention.
Oversaw inventory organization, product uploads, and promotional content to deliver a cohesive and engaging shopping experience.
Understanding Pain Points
While the business offers high-quality, customizable gemstone jewelry with exceptional service, its online presence—limited to an Etsy shop—didn’t reflect the brand’s values or communicate its unique strengths.
The product catalog lacked structure, making it difficult for customers—especially those unfamiliar with gemstones—to confidently find and personalize pieces that fit their style, budget, and needs.
My role was to establish a dedicated website platform and translate this complexity into an intuitive, service-oriented digital experience that empowers customers, supports informed decisions, and reflects the handcrafted, one-of-a-kind nature of the brand.
Product Vision: An Interview with Mandy
My research began with a sit-down conversation with my client Mandy to define the product’s vision and mission and better understand her business goals. As part of restructuring the brand book, I asked targeted questions to clarify the brand’s direction, values, and customer experience priorities, listed below:
Here are my findings:
Jewels By Mandy is a one-of-a-kind designs, personalized service, and an affordable luxury.
Brand Identity & Values: The brand is deeply rooted in handcrafted quality, creativity, and a commitment to exceptional, customer-first service.
Brand Experience Pain Points: The product catalog is overwhelming and unstructured, making it difficult for customers to find or understand products, especially as gemstone novices.
Target Audience Insight: Customers are aesthetically inclined, financially stable, and interested in gemstone jewelry but often lack the product knowledge to shop confidently.
Customer Needs & Expectations: Customers seek personalized service and one-of-a-kind pieces that reflect their individuality, often relying on the brand to help shape their vision.
Tone, Style & Brand Language: Brand communication should remain casual, honest, and helpful—avoiding mass-market language while emphasizing authenticity and guidance.
Offline-Online Consistency: The elegant, personalized, and service-oriented in-store experience needs to be clearly reflected and replicated in the digital journey.
User Personas
Using real customer data from Etsy (message inquiries and system analytics), alongside insights from the brand book, I developed two primary shopper personas that represent Jewels By Mandy’s typical customers.
Journey Mapping
With the selected personas in mind, I mapped out a typical user’s shopping journey—from the initial intent to purchase, through the browsing, comparing, and deciding process, to the final product delivery.
Competitive Analysis: SWOT & SWOT++ Matrixes
For the 1st phase of competitive analysis, I researched jewelry brands with comparable business size and target clientele, focusing closely on their website interfaces. I identified 3 direct competitors that align in scale, business model, and audience, along with 2 indirect competitors—larger, more commercialized B2C brands with broader market reach. Sentient analysis was performed after careful review of each competitor.
With competitors’ strengths and weaknesses clearly outlined, I evaluated areas where Jewels By Mandy could differentiate and capitalize on market opportunities. Building on this, I conducted a SWOT analysis grounded in identified user pain points, then expanded into a more comprehensive SWOT++ framework to systematically cross-analyze internal capabilities against external market dynamics. Here is a simple breakdown:
SWOT = Strengths + Weaknesses + Opportunities + Threats
SWOT++ = [Opportunities + Strengths] + [Opportunities +Weaknesses] + [Threats + Strengths] + [Threats + Weaknesses]
O+S: What strength take advantage of opportunities?
O+W: What opportunities exist to overcome weaknesses?
T+S: What strength can avoid threats?
T+W: How can we minimize weaknesses/avoid threats?
Redefining the Problem
The SWOT analyses highlighted key opportunities, including strengthening the brand’s online presence, improving brand consistency, and increasing sales. These insights informed the next phase of the process, where I began brainstorming potential solutions to address these challenges.
How might we design a more cohesive and compelling digital storefront that increases customer engagement and trust?
Ideation: Information Architecture
To begin the design process, I created a preliminary information architecture focused on the client’s core priorities: a Home page, a Contact page, and an All Products page to showcase the full catalog.
Iteration v1:
After several rounds of discussion with the client, we aligned on the need to prioritize organizing the product offerings in a clean and intuitive way within the navigation menu. I then brainstormed strategies to better represent the collections, with the goal of increasing user engagement, encouraging exploration, and ultimately driving sales.
Iteration v2:
To gather further inspiration, I conducted an additional round of competitive analysis, focusing on website design strengths—particularly in cleanliness, organization, and intuitive navigation. These insights informed the next design iteration, which emphasized encouraging user exploration across products and collections, under one major menu "Shop By". I also expanded the navigation menu and a new product collection "Art in Wine" based on the client’s updated offerings. This is the latest version I referenced to start the design and development of the website.
Wireframing
Before deep diving into digital design and development, I presented my client with a series of rough sketches to communicate my overall vision for the website. These sketches illustrated key elements such as page layout, visual hierarchy, content organization, CMS collection structure, and the payments page—providing a clear foundation for feedback and alignment.
