CORE TASK
THE PROBLEM
INFORMATION
With multiple “Book Now” buttons leading to different destinations, nonfunctional links, and a barely active online store, users often left before completing bookings. Our goal was to redesign the website to make it visually cohesive, trustworthy, and intuitive, while maintaining Banana Art Lab’s quirky and modern personality.
Before vs After - Dashboard
Before vs After - Flow
Pain Points
We started by diagnosing key pain points and gathering insights from both users and the business.
User Pain Points
Landing page was under-utilized and repetitive.
Buttons often didn’t work or led to inconsistent pages.
Event and pricing info were unclear.
Business Insight
75% of Banana Art Lab’s existing customers were Chinese and spoke Mandarin. Which meant clarity, translation, and simplicity were essential for accessibility.
Research
54%
of users wanted clearer event information.
46%
wanted better display of pricing and policies.
We began with moodboards exploring how to express Banana Art Lab’s creativity in a clean, trustworthy way.
We initially assumed DIY users preferred highly visual, “artsy” layouts — but our survey revealed 66.7% preferred cleaner, less “scammy”-looking pages. This helped shift our direction toward minimal, well-structured interfaces that still retained fun micro interactions.
The Results
We kept Banana Art Lab’s recognizable brand patterns and colors but refined them for consistency and better hierarchy.
Every element, from typography to button style, referenced the original design system, making the new site feel both fresh and familiar.
The biggest UI challenge was the dashboard, which had to display many data points (available bookings, past testimonials, and more information on their products) without overwhelming users. I restructured the layout to improve readability and interaction flow.
We heavily focused on prototyping and responsiveness:
Changing a gift card value dynamically updated the checkout total.
Booking steps adjusted automatically depending on user selections.
Used Auto Layout to rebuild messy frames and ensure scalability.
Animations were created to enhance usability: stars, hover effects, and small transitions that gave the site life without slowing it down.
Delivered a fully redesigned prototype with improved clarity and accessibility.
Strengthened Banana Art Lab’s brand trust through consistent visuals and storytelling.
Won Best Visual Design Award at the UX Open Design Showcase. Judged by mentors from Apple, Lululemon, TD, and Emily Carr University.
Although the client did not fully launch the website, the prototype demonstrated strong visual strategy, user-centered flow, and interactive storytelling.
Key Learnings
From nothing to something: With this design competition and Banana Art Labs, I learned how to build structure and process from a blank slate. This was the first time I properly worked with a PM and worked on a website flow from start to finish.
Good Branding = Empathy
Understanding user expectations was key to balancing playfulness with trust, and under utilizing branding for websites that prompt users to book or purchase a service would make it appear scammy and un trustworthy.