Vax Ltd: Modernising the Vax Online Shopping Experience.
Helping redesign Vax's ecommerce experience and customer support platform, creating simpler journeys that connected product discovery, purchase and ownership.
Vax is one of the UK's leading floorcare brands, serving millions of customers across the UK. As part of a three-person Product Design team, I worked across the ecommerce website and customer support platform, collaborating with Product, Marketing and Engineering to improve the customer experience from discovery through to after-sales support.
My role covered the end-to-end design process, from stakeholder workshops and customer journey mapping to wireframing, prototyping, high-fidelity design and developer handover. Alongside individual features, I also contributed to the foundations of a reusable design system that helped bring greater consistency across Vax's digital products.
Although the website successfully sold products, the experience had become inconsistent and no longer reflected the evolving Vax brand.
Navigation, product discovery and purchasing journeys had grown over time, making it harder for customers to find the right products and complete purchases confidently.
Design and development also worked relatively independently, making collaboration and iteration more difficult than it needed to be.
As a result:
Customer journeys had become fragmented.
Product discovery could be improved.
The visual experience no longer aligned with the new digital brand.
Collaboration between design and development lacked consistency.
The Problem
Before designing solutions, we worked to understand both customer behaviour and business priorities.
Stakeholder workshops helped define project goals while analytics and heatmaps highlighted where users were struggling throughout the shopping journey. By combining quantitative data with internal knowledge, we identified opportunities to simplify navigation, improve page layouts and better support purchasing decisions.
This insight ensured design decisions were driven by evidence rather than assumptions.
Understanding the Problem
The redesign focused on making the shopping experience feel simpler, faster and more intuitive.
I created wireframes to explore alternative layouts before developing interactive prototypes that could be reviewed with stakeholders and engineers.
Key improvements focused on:
Simplified navigation.
Improved product discovery.
Clearer product information.
More consistent page layouts.
A visual design aligned with Vax's refreshed digital identity.
Working iteratively allowed ideas to be tested and refined before development began.
Designing the Solution
Alongside the website redesign, we also improved the way design and development worked together.
Previously, teams often operated independently, leading to slower feedback and unnecessary rework. By involving developers earlier in the design process and using interactive prototypes to communicate intent, collaboration became much more effective.
Regular design reviews, shared discussions and clearer handovers helped create a smoother workflow from concept through to delivery.
The project wasn't just about improving the customer experience. It also improved the way the product team delivered work together.
Building Better Collaboration
Design concepts were reviewed throughout the project with stakeholders and developers, using prototypes to validate ideas before implementation.
Testing focused on questions such as:
Could customers find products more easily?
Was the navigation intuitive?
Did product pages provide the information users needed?
Were purchase journeys simpler and more consistent?
Feedback informed multiple iterations, helping refine layouts, content hierarchy and interactions before launch.
Testing
The redesigned website delivered a cleaner, more modern shopping experience that better reflected the Vax brand.
Key improvements included:
Redesigned homepage and navigation.
Improved product listing and detail pages.
Clearer customer journeys.
Interactive prototypes supporting development.
A refreshed visual design aligned with the new digital brand.
Stronger collaboration between design and engineering.
The result was a more consistent experience that supported customers from product discovery through to purchase.
Final Product
The project delivered a significantly improved digital experience for both customers and internal teams.
The redesign achieved:
A modern e-commerce experience aligned with the refreshed Vax brand.
Improved navigation and product discovery.
Better collaboration between design and development.
Stronger design processes for future product work.
A scalable foundation for continued improvements across the website.
The project demonstrated how combining customer insight with close cross-functional collaboration can improve both the product and the way teams work together.
Measuring Success
This project reinforced the value of designing with evidence rather than assumptions.
Using analytics alongside stakeholder insight helped us prioritise changes that addressed genuine customer needs rather than subjective opinions. Equally important was the closer collaboration we established between design and engineering, creating a more efficient process that benefited both the team and the final product.
It was a valuable reminder that successful digital products are shaped not only by good design, but by strong collaboration throughout the entire delivery process.
Reflection
