Penguin and Random House joined together to 2013 to form Penguin Random House, a word renowned publishing company. At the moment, their South African website uses external companies to sell their books. This redesign aims to sell more books for Penguin using their website, and offer an overall better user experience across all platforms. Simulating the experience of being in a book store, browsing through and buying books, in an online environment.

Redesign Penguin's website for an improved user experience, while also selling more books for Penguin in an online, responsive environment

Encourage the user to buy books and engage with the website by creating a more personalized experience, and presenting to the user, more of the books that are available on Penguin's website. Simulate the experience of a physical book store using information architecture, presenting all the required information about a book to the user, and offering a variety of content to the user to ensure that they are not overwhelmed by books.

The design process began with looking at the current website and identifying areas of improvement. In addition it was important to understand the content that was present on their current website in order to structure and organize it in the best way possible. Following this, many wireframes were developed to identify errors in the logic that was used to produce those wireframes and find the best one to form the foundation of the redesign. The wireframes explored various was to display content and various layouts for the content.

Provide the quickest and easiest experience for users when buying a book.

Sell more books for Penguin.

Create a responsive design that is equally as function across all platforms.

Present information to the user so that it is easy to understand and navigate.

Cater for users of all needs (Those that know exactly what they want and those who may not be sure what they are looking for).

The home page aims to present to the user, what Penguin has to offer. Starting with recommendations for the user, featured content and then more personalized content, if they are signed in. This aims to let the user immediately know that Penguin is focused on them as a user and aims to give them the best content. Each section of content is different to the others with regards to layout and and sometimes colour to offer the user a way-finding system so that they are aware of where they are on the page and where other content is in relation to it. Users can bookmark content if they want to perhaps look at it again later, in addition, users have the option to purchase a book instantly or add it to their cart and continue shopping. Giving the user as many options as possible for their experience.

Tags such as ‘B’ on the best selling books and ‘R’ on the top rated books aim to make it easy to see the section that books fall under and also use it as a navigation tool to view other books in the same section.

This is the page for when a user has clicked 'read more' on a book that they are interested in. They are presented with a full synopsis of the book, options to buy or bookmark, reviews and related books. The reviews give the user a clear understanding of what others think of a book and can help a user in the decision to buy a book. The suggested books that they may enjoy encourages the user to buy more books from Penguin, while also giving them options if they are interested in reading more books but are unsure of what to look for next.

Sign In and Register are on the same page so that users don't have to 'move' to perform either of the actions

Users can view a progress tracker on the right during registration so that they are fully aware of how long it will take to register and move back an forth between steps if they make a mistake. Payment details and delivery details are included in the registration because, this will mean that users only have to enter this information once and not every time the buy a book. In addition, it will allow users to complete the checkout process a lot quicker and easier.

If user has decided to buy a book instantly from another page or selects the cart icon, this is the page they will see. Users are provided with a summary of the books that they are looking to buy, so that they can be sure that they are spending their money on the items that they want. Users can also see an overview of the price of everything so that they are aware of how much money they are spending and adjust their cart according if they have a budget. 

Users also have the option to send books to people that they know, buy selecting 'Buy As A Gift' users can enter an alternative address, to the one that they entered when they registered, and send a book directly to a person they know. If the user doesn't want to book to go straight to them they, can simply use the address that was entered during registration. This can be done for individual books.

The primary navigation breaks down the books available from Penguin as much as possible to allow users to find exactly what they want. The primary navigation stays at the top of the screen as users scroll down a page (sticky navigation), allowing them to access it even when they are at the bottom of a very long page without having to scroll to the top.

Shift Light is the official typeface used by Penguin Random House however, it is a proprietary typeface, therefore an alternative was used, Courier New. In addition, Proxima Nova, a complimentary typeface to Courier New was primarily used for a modern aesthetic in the website.

The colours used were mainly those used in the Penguin branding other than the complimentary blue used for various call to action buttons.

One of the goals as mentions before is to create the quickest and easiest processes for the user when they are looking to buy a book. The redesign offers many paths for the user to take, some offering more details about a book, others taking users straight to the checkout. Although, every one has the same goal and destination of getting the users to the checkout with the books that they want.