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LCW: Heuristic & Competitive Analyses

Project type

UX Case Study

Date

2021

Role

UX Researcher, UI Designer

To guide a full eCommerce redesign, I led a heuristic evaluation and competitive analysis of Left Coast Wholesale’s website. Using industry heuristics and competitor audits, I identified key usability issues across navigation, mobile, accessibility, and content structure. These findings shaped actionable design improvements, including a streamlined IA, mobile-first product pages, and guest vs. logged-in user flows. My work laid the strategic foundation for a more intuitive, scalable, and conversion-ready digital experience.

To establish a baseline for UX improvements, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of Left Coast Wholesale’s site, using Jakob Nielsen’s principles as a guiding framework. My goal was to uncover critical usability issues while balancing practical business constraints.

The LCW homepage lacked clear visual hierarchy, offered no immediate value proposition, and featured image-heavy content with no context. I flagged this as a priority area for restructuring to better guide users and clarify brand identity on first load.

Benchmarking against Scott's Miracle-Gro-owned competitor Hawthorne revealed stronger CTA placement and improved visual focus. However, excessive promotion cluttered the experience—an important reminder that even visually polished sites can struggle without intentional content prioritization.

The navigation system was inconsistent and disorganized, forcing users to hunt for core information. I proposed a scalable, simplified nav structure and mega-menu concept to accommodate product growth and improve information architecture.

Hawthorne’s navigation hierarchy surfaced educational content more effectively, but buried product categories behind multiple clicks. This revealed an opportunity for LCW to balance product discoverability with industry thought leadership.

Contrast ratios, alt-text usage, and focus indicators were insufficient or missing. These findings informed my push for WCAG-compliant updates to improve inclusivity, SEO, and mobile readability, which are all critical for a scaling eCommerce platform.

The mobile experience was under-optimized, with tiny tap targets and awkward scrolling patterns. I redesigned the product pages using a mobile-first approach that emphasized spacing, readability, and easy access to key actions like “Add to Cart.”

LCW’s content tone is clear and informative, but it’s poorly structured across the site. Category pages were overloaded with long-form copy better suited for a resource hub. I recommended reworking this content into a dedicated Resources section and introducing breadcrumb navigation to improve findability.

The logged-in dashboard and Benefits page lacked visual appeal and clarity. Sparse content and inconsistent visual design created confusion around purpose and value. I proposed adding supportive copy and visual hierarchy to orient users and align the experience with the rest of the site, and designed a robust account dashboard for logged-in users.

Hawthorne and Hydrofarm organized product content into intuitive, scannable grids with simplified category flows. This emphasized how much more discoverable their catalogs were compared to LCW. These examples supported my case for rethinking LCW’s category-to-product journey with more structured content blocks.

Poor font pairing, inconsistent spacing, and a lack of visual hierarchy contributed to cognitive overload and brand dilution. My UI refresh introduced modular grid systems and consistent typography to reinforce trust and clarity, and identified opportunities to introduce stronger storytelling visuals and consistent, brand-driven components across templates.

Hawthorne’s polished UI highlighted LCW’s design gaps, particularly around whitespace, icon use, and typographic rhythm. This inspired key improvements in my redesign proposals for LCW’s content blocks and homepage.

LCW’s blog had been rebranded as “Resources,” offering a great opportunity to elevate content strategy, but it was underutilized. I recommended transforming it into a centralized knowledge hub to build trust and differentiate LCW through value-added content and educational tools.

Hawthorne extended its brand into civic advocacy with clear calls to action and off-site links. While not a priority for LCW, it emphasized how supplementary messaging and trust-building features can reinforce a company’s values and deepen audience alignment and community engagement.

Despite its limitations, LCW had notable strengths: strong content, a unique product catalog, and a committed customer base. I focused my redesign strategy on amplifying those assets while addressing the usability gaps.

Findings from this audit directly informed my redesign work. I created a new information architecture, mobile-first product pages, and clear guest/user account flows in Figma, turning research insights into actionable, user-centered design solutions.