E-commerce Customer Dashboard

A case study in building a high-performance, accessible e-commerce front end.

1. Problem & Functional Requirements

As the technical lead, my primary goal was to modernize a legacy e-commerce front end. The old platform was slow, not mobile-responsive, and difficult for users to navigate. The new system needed to handle real-time updates for stock and order status, provide a seamless cross-device user experience, and be highly performant on low-bandwidth connections.

2. UX/UI & Design Philosophy

I worked closely with the design team to translate high-fidelity mockups into a component-based architecture. Our UX/UI philosophy was to prioritize clarity and minimize user friction. We implemented a "before-and-after" visual flow for the checkout process to demonstrate the improved user journey. I ensured every UI component, from buttons to form inputs, had a consistent state for hover, focus, and disabled states.

Before User Flow After User Flow

3. Technical Architecture & Design Patterns

The project was built using React with Zustand for state management. This stack was chosen for its performance, modularity, and lightweight nature. Key design patterns were critical to maintain code quality and scalability:

  • Component-Based Architecture: By breaking the UI into small, reusable components (e.g., `ProductCard`, `CartButton`), we made the codebase easier to maintain, test, and scale.
  • Container/Presenter Pattern: We separated business logic (containers) from the presentational components (UI) to create a clear separation of concerns, which streamlined development and debugging.
  • Observer Pattern: I implemented the Observer pattern for the real-time order status updates. This allowed the UI to automatically react to changes in the database without continuous polling, improving performance and user experience.

4. Accessibility & Edge User Cases

A core priority was to build an inclusive product. I audited the application with accessibility in mind from day one.

  • Accessibility: All interactive elements were built with proper ARIA attributes for screen readers and were fully navigable via keyboard, meeting WCAG 2.1 standards.
  • Edge User Cases: We handled a variety of edge cases, including:
    • Graceful error handling for API failures.
    • UI adjustments for users with large text preferences.
    • Optimizations for users on slow or intermittent network connections.
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