Elevating luxury eCommerce with emotion and heritage

Description

Maison Birks is one of Canada’s most iconic and enduring luxury jewelry houses, with a heritage that dates back to 1879. Celebrated for its timeless elegance and exceptional craftsmanship, Birks creates exquisite jewelry that honors life’s most meaningful moments, blending tradition with modern sophistication to embody the essence of refined Canadian luxury.

Goal

To design a seamless, emotionally engaging, and visually refined eCommerce experience that reflects Birks’ luxury identity, builds user trust, and bridges the gap between online and in-store shopping, ultimately driving conversion and reinforcing brand prestige.

Problem statement

Maison Birks faced a disconnect between its refined in-store experience and its outdated eCommerce platform. Customers seeking a luxurious, emotionally resonant journey felt the website lacked the brand’s elegance and legacy. This gap affected user confidence and led to missed opportunities in online engagement and sales.

Outcome

I designed a fully responsive eCommerce experience for Birks that reflects the brand’s heritage and luxury through refined aesthetics, immersive storytelling, and a cohesive visual identity. The platform offers intuitive navigation, enhanced product discovery, and builds trust through reassurance elements. A key feature allows users to book personalized in-store appointments with experts, seamlessly connecting digital and physical touchpoints to deliver a premium, emotionally engaging shopping journey. The technology used was the Adobe Commerce platform.

Research

As one step of my comprehensive research, I reviewed user interviews provided by the client along with digital data from the marketing team. Analyzing this combined feedback and statistics helped me identify key areas to improve the online shopping experience, focusing on user confidence, emotional engagement, and seamless omnichannel interactions.

Competitor analysis

I analyzed major luxury jewelry brands in North America and global benchmarks across different market tiers. By reviewing features, aesthetics, user flows, and storytelling, I identified gaps and best practices in delivering luxury online. These insights highlighted opportunities for Birks to elevate its digital presence, enhance its omnichannel experience, and position itself alongside leading brands in the competitive U.S. market.

User interviews

Main themes explored during user interviews

• Emotional connection: How users perceive the brand’s luxury, heritage, and storytelling through the website.
  
• Shopping confidence: Trust in product authenticity, quality assurance, and the checkout process.
  
• Navigation & discovery: Ease of finding products, filtering options, and the overall browsing experience.
  
• Omnichannel experience: Expectations around seamless integration between online and in-store visits, including appointment booking.
  
• Visual appeal & aesthetics: Reactions to imagery, layout, and alignment with luxury brand standards.
  
• Future needs: Desired features, personalized services, and digital innovations to enhance the luxury shopping journey.
  
  

Interview key learnings

Emotional disconnect online: Users feel the current website lacks the warmth, elegance, and storytelling that create emotional engagement in-store, making luxury feel distant and impersonal.

Confidence and trust gaps: Customers expressed uncertainty about product authenticity and the checkout experience, which affects their confidence in completing purchases online.

Demand for seamless omnichannel experience: Users want a smooth transition between online browsing and in-store interactions, including personalized services like expert appointments, to fully experience the brand’s luxury.

Value proposition

For: Luxury shoppers seeking meaningful, high-quality jewelry that reflects heritage, craftsmanship, and emotional significance.

Who: Expect a seamless, elegant, and trustworthy online shopping experience that mirrors the prestige of Birks’ in-store environment.

The product: A fully responsive, immersive eCommerce platform for Birks.

That: Elevates the brand’s luxury identity through refined visual storytelling, intuitive navigation, and a seamless omnichannel experience, empowering users to shop confidently, emotionally engaged, and connected to both digital and physical touchpoints.

This value proposition guided the design of key user flows and features that support Birks’ goal to strengthen its presence as Canada’s leading luxury jeweller while expanding its digital influence.

Personas

After completing the empathize phase and gaining a deep understanding of users’ needs, motivations, and behaviours, I defined a set of key personas to represent Birks’ diverse luxury clientele. These personas helped guide the design by capturing distinct user goals and emotional drivers:

• Engagement ring researcher: A romantic planner on a mission to find the one, the perfect ring for a proposal. He’s informed, emotional, and looking for a piece with a story.
  
• Trend-conscious self-gifter: A confident and independent woman who rewards herself with beautiful things. She tracks jewelry trends but always looks for a classic twist.
  
• Legacy jewelry seeker: A discerning buyer who sees fine jewelry as heirlooms. She's looking for craftsmanship, history, and emotional value, something to pass down.
  
• Luxury minimalist buyer: A style-conscious man who appreciates sleek, timeless design and invests in quality over quantity. He shops intentionally, guided by brand values and aesthetic.
  
  

These personas shaped a user-centered approach to creating a resonant and tailored online experience.

Behaviour journey map

At this stage of the Birks project, I created a behavioural journey map to visually outline the end-to-end steps luxury shoppers take when exploring and purchasing fine jewelry online. This map detailed users’ actions, key touchpoints across devices and channels, emotional moments, and potential barriers, such as decision uncertainty or lack of personalized support, that impact their eCommerce experience and ultimate purchase confidence.

Starting scenario: Users interacted with the Birks prototype online to explore the new responsive website and experience the refreshed branding and flows.

Target behavior: Smooth navigation through key product pages and features, providing feedback on usability, aesthetics, and emotional connection with the brand.

Desired outcome: Valuable insights and user reactions that validate design decisions and identify areas for improvement before final launch.

This testing helped refine the user experience and ensure alignment with luxury brand expectations.

Information architecture

I defined the new website structure and navigation, working with an SEO specialist to integrate top keywords and ensure a seamless, user-friendly experience that supports Birks’ luxury brand and search visibility.

Prototype & testing

I created a mid-fidelity prototype using Sketch and InVision to bring mockups to life with a seamless, realistic eCommerce flow.

Key innovative features included

Seamless purchase flow: Designed an intuitive navigation and checkout process that supports effortless browsing and buying, reflecting Birks’ luxury experience.

Appointment booking: Integrated a feature to book personalized in-store expert consultations, bridging online and offline touchpoints.

Product information management: Collaborated on implementing a PIM system to enrich product pages with detailed, high-quality content that enhances storytelling and user confidence.

Categorization of shopping: Enabled intuitive browsing by allowing users to shop by diamond shapes, styles, and collections, aligning with how customers naturally explore fine jewelry.

Filters optimization: Improved filtering options for more relevant and efficient product discovery across categories.

Product page enhancements: Refined the layout and content hierarchy to highlight product features, support decision-making, and elevate the luxury presentation.

Feedback from prototype tests

User reactions to the prototype highlighted strong appreciation for the refined visual identity and smooth, intuitive navigation. The appointment booking feature was seen as a thoughtful bridge between online and in-store experiences. Users also valued the enhanced product pages, noting that enriched content and reassuring details made the shopping experience feel more premium and trustworthy.

UI design

Drawing from usability feedback and strategic research insights, I led the UI design to reflect the elegance and emotional depth of the Birks brand. The goal was to craft a refined visual language that evokes luxury, supports intuitive navigation, and enhances storytelling while seamlessly blending modern digital expectations with the timeless heritage of Maison Birks.

Photography direction

As the designer on the rebranding, I helped reshape the visual photography style for Maison Birks by proposing an elegant, pared-down direction. I suggested a refined style, incorporating textured materials unique to each collection and featuring more natural, lifestyle-focused mannequins to create a less staged and more emotionally resonant visual language.

Team & methodology

I worked in Agile Scrum sprints with developers, a Scrum Master and a Product Owner. As a UX/UI designer I led a collaborative process from ideation, visual design, and user testing to stakeholder alignment, documentation, and photography direction, driving weekly sprints and iterative feedback to bring Birks’s digital vision to life while aligning with user and business goals.