Case Study

EZ Shoe
Repair

Transforming a confusing, jargon-heavy repair service into a clean, visual e-commerce experience — so customers could go from "I have no idea what I need" to a completed order in under five minutes.

Industry E-Commerce / Services
Role Lead Product Designer
Team Sole designer + 1 engineer
Timeline 5 Months
Platform Web Application
EZ Shoe Repair
Hear me talk about this project
0:00
01 — Overview

Making a Complex Service
Feel Effortless Online

EZ Shoe Repair is an online shoe repair service — a category most people still associate with dropping shoes off at a local cobbler. The challenge was getting customers to trust the process enough to order online, navigate the repair options confidently, and complete checkout without confusion.

I led the full design of their e-commerce experience, creating a clean, visual, and educational checkout flow that replaced a long, jargon-filled form with an intuitive tile-based selection system — making the service accessible to a wide range of customers regardless of tech proficiency.

↑ Orders
Meaningful increase in completed online orders after launch — the old flow was actively blocking purchases from going through
<5min
The design target — from landing to confirmed order, with no prior knowledge of shoe-repair terminology required
↑ AOV
Average order value rose as clearer service discovery led customers to add repairs they previously wouldn’t have found
View Live Site ↗
E-Commerce UX Checkout Optimization Conversion Rate UX Research A/B Testing Mobile Design
Part of a connected system
Same owner, two storefronts. EZ Shoe Repair is where you fix your shoes — Dardano’s is where you buy them. I designed both ends of the journey.
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02 — Problem Statement

A Specialized Service Lost
in a Sea of Jargon

The existing online repair process was a major conversion barrier. Customers were met with outdated interfaces, lengthy text-heavy forms packed with technical terminology most people don’t know — sole replacement types, welt stitching, heel caps. The result was confusion, low trust, and abandoned orders.

The business couldn’t scale with a flow that actively pushed customers away before they could complete a purchase. The experience needed to be rebuilt from the ground up around clarity, education, and trust.

I just want the checkout to be quick and painless — no surprises, no unnecessary steps. I don’t know what half these repair options even mean.

— Amelia Chen, Goal-Oriented Professional · User Research Interview
03 — My Role & How I Worked

What I Owned

I led the design end-to-end — research, the checkout architecture, the visual system, and the interaction design — and partnered closely with one engineer to build it. The whole brief came down to a single problem: customers don’t speak cobbler. Sole replacement, welt stitching, heel counters — that’s industry language, not customer language.

Two decisions did the heavy lifting:

Decision 01
Show, don’t name
People couldn’t pick the right repair from text alone, so I killed the jargon form entirely and led every option with a photo, a plain-language description, and an upfront price. Customers identify what they need at a glance instead of decoding technical terms — the single change that unlocked conversion.
Decision 02
Tap, don’t type — on mobile
Every form field was a place to lose someone, and most people were ordering on their phone. So I rebuilt the flow around quick-tap selection over text entry, mobile-first, with trust signals — reviews, guarantees, turnaround times — built into the steps so confidence never required leaving the page.
04 — Design Process

From Confusing Forms
to Visual Tiles

01
Discovery
Surveys, Usability Testing & Competitor Analysis
Ran customer surveys and usability tests on the existing flow to identify where users dropped off and why. Analyzed competitor service sites to understand what patterns built trust and reduced friction in online service checkout experiences.
02
Define
Mapping Barriers to Purchase
Synthesized research into three core barriers: inability to identify the right repair, lack of transparent pricing, and low trust in the overall experience. Defined success as a flow where users could get from landing to checkout in under 3 minutes with no confusion.
03
Design
Visual Tile System & Transparent Checkout
Replaced the text-heavy form with a visual tile-based repair selection system — each tile showing a clear image, a plain-language description, and upfront pricing. Designed a streamlined checkout that minimized required inputs and surfaced trust signals (reviews, guarantees, turnaround times) throughout.
04
Validate
A/B Testing & Mobile Optimization
Ran A/B tests comparing the new tile-based flow against the old text-form process. Conducted iterative usability tests on image use, content hierarchy, and pricing clarity. Optimized the mobile experience with large touch targets and a thumb-friendly layout for on-the-go ordering.
05 — Impact

What We Delivered

The Checkout Finally Converted
The old flow was losing customers before they got halfway through. The redesigned tile-based experience removed every unnecessary step — and for the first time, the majority of users who started the flow actually finished it.
Customers Started Adding More Services
When repair options are clearly presented with images and plain descriptions, people discover services they didn't know they needed. Average order value increased as customers added services they would have previously missed or ignored in the old form.
Non-Tech Users Could Complete Orders Unassisted
Usability testing with low-tech participants — the segment most likely to abandon — showed they could move from landing page to confirmed order without asking for help. That was the real benchmark we were designing toward.
A Scalable Foundation for Growth
The tile system was built to scale — new repair services could be added as visual tiles without rethinking the flow. The client had a platform that could grow with the business rather than needing a full rebuild every time the catalog changed.
06 — Reflection

What This Project Taught Me

Learning 01
Simplify the Complex
Translating a specialized, jargon-heavy service into simple visual components was the key to unlocking conversions. The right balance of educational content and design brevity isn’t about dumbing things down — it’s about meeting users where they are and giving them exactly what they need to decide with confidence.
Learning 02
Ownership Drives Results
I owned the design from strategy through to the build, staying embedded with the engineer the whole way — so every decision was grounded in what we could actually ship and tied to a business outcome. When you own the result, not just the spec, quality improves at every layer.
Learning 03
I’d Measure the Tiles Themselves
Working on a core revenue flow taught me real dedication to validation — every detail, from image quality to pricing placement to button labels, moved conversion. If I ran it again, I’d instrument the funnel earlier and per-tile, so I could prove exactly which photos and trust signals drove the lift instead of reading it from aggregate orders.
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© 2026 Melvin Morales Lead Product Designer · Las Vegas, NV Built with intention.