Merchant Portal Redesign for Seamless Business & Partnership Management
Overview
Aspired is a platform that connects small businesses with nonprofits, allowing merchants to donate a percentage of each order to a cause they support through a unique partnership link. As the platform expanded, Aspired sought to introduce a direct partnership flow and improve the merchant portal experience.
As a UX Designer, I worked on redesigning the merchant portal to improve how businesses manage their operations and nonprofit partnerships. I contributed through research, user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity designs to create a more intuitive and efficient experience for merchants.
Challenge
Merchant–NGO partnerships are currently created and managed through email, making the process inefficient and difficult to track. As a result, merchants struggle to:
Track how many sales each partnership generates
Monitor past, pending, amd active partnerships
Accurately track the total donations made from those sales
Problem Overview
To stay on track and meet the deadline, I created a structured timeline outlining the tasks and deliverables planned for each week.
Research
To understand the current challenges merchants faced, I reviewed the existing platform and analyzed how partnerships between merchants and NGOs were currently created and managed. I also conducted a competitive analysis with competitors such as UberEats, DoorDash, DocSend, and Etsy.
Provides a merchant portal with detailed analytics including sales reports, order data, payouts, and customer insights to help businesses track performance and optimize operations.
Focuses on operational management and performance insights, enabling merchants to monitor orders, ratings, and regional demand trends.
Offers a centralized seller dashboard where merchants can manage inventory, track orders, communicate with customers, and analyze shop performance metrics.
Uses unique links and analytics to track engagement and understand user behavior, demonstrating how link-based tracking can provide deeper visibility into performance.
💡 Key Insight:
Most platforms provide clear dashboards and analytics to track business performance, highlighting the importance of giving merchants visibility into partnerships, sales, and impact.
User Persona
I created a persona—Rachel (28, Architect)—to represent the primary target user. This helped me better empathize with the needs, goals, and challenges of the merchants and prioritize features that would address their most important pain points.
Sketches
I preserved the existing layout, focusing on visual and interaction improvements to make key workflows more intuitive for merchants.
Wireframes
Based on insights from the competitive analysis, I developed wireframes incorporating additional functionality to enhance the merchant experience.
User Testing
I conducted a moderated test with 5 participants, providing a brief introduction to the merchant portal and asking them to complete two key tasks:
Add a new product
Create a partnership link
💡 Key Insight:
Participants were able to navigate the portal and successfully complete both tasks, indicating that the redesigned flows were intuitive and user-friendly.
Iterations based on Stakeholder Feedback
Chat History added under Orders to track customer interactions.
Donations added under Partnerships to view total contributions generated by the business.
Hi-Fidelity Screens
Next Steps
Given more time and resources, I would..
Implement an onboarding process for new merchants to guide them through the platform.
Gather ongoing feedback from current and past merchants to continually refine the portal experience.
Develop a style guide and component kit to ensure consistency across all products for current and future teams.
My Role
UX Designer
Client
Aspired
Duration
2021 - 2022