Candyd
Client Work
Deliverables
Responsive website,
Design System, Product Site
My Role
UX Designer
Team
Founder
Shopify Developer
UX Designer (Me)
Timeline
4 months (April 2025-present)
// About the company
Candyd is a direct-to-consumer personalized gifting brand that offers a wide range of customizable products, including smart jewelry, memory boxes, DIY kits, stationery, and apparel. The platform enables users to create highly personal gifts by adding multimedia content such as text, photos, audio, and video.
Their product line includes both customizable and standardized SKUs, which are sold on a shopify e-commerce platform.
// Process followed
// My responsibilities and context
As the sole UX Designer at Candyd, I led the end-to-end redesign of the brand’s e-commerce experience. My role spanned across research, strategy, UX, and UI — starting with identifying key friction points in the existing website, and reimagining the structure, flow, and visual language to better serve Candyd’s audience. I was responsible for redesigning core pages, including the homepage, product discovery flows, and the multi-step customization journey.
I also rewrote major sections of copy, introduced a modular design system, and collaborated closely with developers to ensure consistency and feasibility. Beyond design execution, I contributed to product thinking — ideating features like memory prompts, smart delivery flows, and contextual feedback — to create a more thoughtful and emotionally resonant user experience.
// Meet the target group
Cracking brand positioning for Gen-z
Our core users are predominantly Gen Z professionals aged 21–30 — emotionally expressive, design-conscious, but also time-starved. We needed to evolve the brand to feel emotionally mature yet creatively vibrant, balancing joyful aesthetics with a cleaner, more minimal interface
"I usually forget important dates until the last minute — I need something that helps me plan better without making it a big deal."
Kabir, 26, Pune
"I love giving meaningful gifts, but I don’t have the time to make something from scratch — it has to be easy but still feel personal."
Riya, 23, Mumbai
"If I’m customizing something, it needs to be smooth. I don’t want to spend 30 minutes filling out a form after a long workday."
Aayushi, 28, Mumbai
// Understanding Users
What They Needed, What We Saw
We realized that while users were definitely interested, they were often looking for direction. When someone landed on the Candyd website, they were often intrigued — maybe they’d seen a product on Instagram, gotten a link from a friend, or were just browsing for something thoughtful to gift.
“What is this brand really about?”
“Is it a gifting platform? A design store? Can I customize stuff?”
They came in curious, but that curiosity wasn’t always met with clarity. These were the kinds of questions that weren’t getting answered fast enough.
Here are some key insights:
Seeking inspiration
Many users don’t have a product in mind yet; they’re exploring for ideas.
Needing reassurance
First-time buyers want to know if the product is worth the effort (especially with customization).
Looking for clarity
Users need quick orientation, emotional relevance, low-friction exploration, and visible social proof right away.
// key challenges
What we aimed to crack
Reducing Drop-Offs in a High-Effort Customization Flow :
Gen Z users love personalization, but not at the cost of convenience. The original flow demanded too much upfront effort — especially from working users juggling multiple tabs or mobile distractions.
Improving Product Discovery Across the Website
With no central space to explore products, many users simply left. We needed to help users browse with intent or curiosity — and find what they need without getting lost.
Rebranding Without Losing Its Soul
We needed to redefine Candyd’s visual language to appeal to a more mature audience — retaining its playful, colorful essence while creating a more refined, emotionally resonant interface.
Making the Copy Work Harder
Much of the earlier copy was vague or too abstract. Gen Z appreciates honest, emotionally intelligent messaging that tells them exactly what the product is, how it works, and why it’s worth their time.
// wireframing layouts
defining Style and Structure
We opted for a box-style layout to create clear visual separation between sections and bring structure to the page. While Candyd’s palette is fun and warm, the clean edges and modular layout introduced a sense of balance and visual maturity — helping the interface feel playful yet polished.
// visual design decisions
initial visual mood-boarding : Exploring Quirk and Play
In the early stages, we leaned into Candyd’s naturally playful personality. Our initial moodboards explored big, expressive type, bold animations, and layered elements — aiming to highlight the brand’s fun tone and vibrant spirit. The goal was to let the quirkiness shine through visually.
However, as we tested these directions and gathered feedback, we noticed a key insight:
Users perceived the brand as being geared toward children.
This perception came from a combination of saturated colors, overuse of the mascot, and highly animated visuals. It clashed with the emotional depth of the products — especially for an audience of working Gen Zs (ages 21–30) looking for meaningful, stylish, and mature gifting options.
We finally decided that we will go ahead with a cooler palette with all the cooler colors- purple, blue, and green will be dominant as we wants to stray away from the feminine look. Orange and pink were mainly limited to accents and illustrations.
// visual design decisions
Evolved Moodboarding — Embracing Clean, Confident Minimalism
As Candyd evolved — especially with the launch of the smart jewelry collection — it became clear that a more minimal, intentional visual direction was necessary. We stripped back the noise and focused on building a design system that felt modern, emotional, and easy to navigate.
Rather than relying on excessive decorative elements, we brought in clean layouts, modular grids, and mature box-style structures to organize information. The fun now came through strategic use of color and shape, not clutter — keeping the brand joyful but grounded.
// final design decisions
Systemic Design Challenges (Brand-Wide & Visual Issues)
These are the broader, experience-level issues that affected the brand’s perception and usability across the entire site- and here is how we tackled those.
Color Combination Conflicts
While the brand palette was vibrant and playful, some color pairings — like pool blue and bright orange — lacked adequate contrast or visual harmony, This compromised the perceived sophistication of the brand.
Reworking the Color System
We defined harmonious color combinations and smaller sub-palettes for use in different sections. Primary color(purple) was extensively used and the overall palette was kept cool dominant with warm accents kept mainly for illustrations.
About us
Overuse of Mascot
The Candyd mascot, meant to add charm, was overused across the interface, making the site feel overly juvenile. It also lacked contextual restraint, which diluted the impact of the more meaningful moments.
Intentional Use of Mascot
To reduce visual clutter and better align with the brand’s emotional depth, we scaled back mascot usage across the site. Only used for highlighting moments like CTA encouragement or end-of-page interactions.
Homepage
Inconsistent Design System
There was a visible lack of consistency across the website's components — buttons, input fields, spacing, and padding varied noticeably across pages. The absence of a defined system also made it harder to scale across new sections.
Homepage
Scalable Design System
We developed a modular design system to bring consistency to component sizing, spacing, and interaction states. Clear documentation was created for button types, input field variations, card layouts, and spacing rules.
Lack of Hierarchy in Typography
Font sizes, weights, and line spacing were inconsistently applied, making it harder for users to scan and absorb information. The result was visual noise that detracted from the emotional storytelling that Candyd aimed to deliver.
Refining Typographic Hierarchy
Defined font sizes, weights, and line heights for headlines, subheads, and body text. Ensuring hierarchy was preserved on both desktop and mobile, with styles that adapted fluidly across screen sizes.
// final design decisions
Screen-Specific & Structural UX Issues
In addition to brand-level inconsistencies, there were screen-specific usability and flow challenges that disrupted the shopping journey and made key functionalities harder to access:
Redesigning Top-Navbar for clear navigation
Reducing friction on Product Display Page
Customization is an effort-heavy task, users need to input media sometimes and think about the memories they want to display, which lead to a natural drop-off before purchase. Hence, immediate purchase option greatly eliminated the initial friction point.
Enhancing product discoverability on Homepage
One of the most significant usability gaps was the absence of essential homepage modules — such as featured products, social proof (like testimonials or reviews), deals/sale section, and a clear product catalog overview. This made the homepage feel more like a static landing page than a dynamic entry point into a vibrant brand ecosystem.
Users arriving with curiosity or intent had no guidance on where to go next — no quick path to best-sellers, new launches, or emotional collections. The result: higher bounce rates, missed storytelling opportunities, and underutilized brand equity.
Redesigning Customization flow
// final design decisions
revising the flow- Introducing essential pages for discoverability
To improve discoverability and guide users through Candyd’s growing product ecosystem, we introduced two key pages into the user flow:
Category Page – A visual overview of all product categories offered by Candyd, helping users quickly understand the range (from smart jewelry and memory boxes to journals and pins).
Product Listing Page – A shoppable grid where users can explore the full product catalog. Filters for price, style, and category, along with sorting options, allow for flexible, preference-based browsing.
These pages are now easily accessible via the top navigation bar and direct links within homepage sections — enabling smoother exploration, reducing bounce, and creating more entry points into the purchase journey.
The goal: Make it easier for users to find what they didn’t know they were looking for.
// design system
Building for Scalability
The design system not only helped ensure a cohesive experience across Candyd’s e-commerce and smart jewelry platforms, but also reduced ambiguity, improved design-dev collaboration, and set the foundation for future launches.
The system included:
Standardized component sizing and states (buttons, inputs, modals, navigation elements)
Defined typography hierarchy with size and weight rules for desktop and mobile
Color palette rules, including tested combinations for accessibility and visual harmony
Pre-built section modules (hero blocks, product carousels, testimonials, form layouts) to streamline page creation
// mockups
// Key learnings
Clarity = Conversion
I learned how even small shifts in copy and structure can significantly impact user understanding and action
Balancing Playfulness with Maturity:
Designing for a Gen Z audience taught me how to maintain brand quirk while introducing visual restraint
Shaping Product Strategy:
Being the sole designer pushed me to think beyond visuals and contribute to product features and flows
// What I could’ve done better
Stronger Visual Consistency in Early Explorations
Some of the first iterations lacked grid discipline and visual rhythm. I could have leaned into design systems thinking sooner.
Started with a More Defined Research Framework
Early user research could’ve been more structured — clearer personas or user testing earlier might have helped validate assumptions faster.
fin.
Next project
