Storefront UX, research-led not opinion-led.
Research-led Shopify UX for stores that need to fix friction before they fix anything else. Customer interviews, journey mapping, prototyping, and shipped UX patterns across PDP, PLP, search, account, and checkout.
Research
Output
Validation
Hand-off
What is Shopify UX design?
Shopify UX design covers the patterns that decide whether shoppers convert — PDP layout, PLP filtering, cart and checkout flow, and customer account surfaces. UX design on Shopify lives between brand design and CRO; the patterns matter as much as the visuals.
Why this exists
Most storefront UX is best-practice mimicry.
Buy box on the right, gallery on the left, sticky add-to-cart on mobile. The patterns are well-known; the application to your store is rarely tested. Real UX work starts with research — what your customers actually struggle with — and ships fixes scoped to that. Patterns, not best-practice.
What we hear most
When Shopify UX is the right starting service.
Conversion is a guess
Numbers move and nobody knows why. UX research turns guesses into hypotheses with revenue impact attached.
Mobile UX is hostile
Variant pickers feel desktop. Gallery interactions assume hover. Gestures aren't there. Mobile-first UX is overdue.
Search and discovery underperform
Predictive search, faceting, sort, merchandising. The discovery surface needs UX love before it gets a redesign.
Account UX is invisible
Once a customer signs in, the experience drops away. Order tracking, subscriptions, addresses all feel like an afterthought.
Checkout extensions unused
Address validation, gift options, smart upsells, trust signals — all available, none deployed. UX scoping is the prerequisite to building.
What we deliver
What ships in a Haxtiv Shopify UX engagement.
Research, journeys, prototypes, and validated UX patterns ready for development.
Research
- 5–10 customer interviews (buyers + abandoners)
- Hotjar or session-recording study
- Funnel data review (GA4 + Shopify Analytics)
- Competitor and category benchmark
- Findings synthesis with prioritised opportunities
Journeys & flows
- Buyer journeys for top 3–5 personas
- Friction map across each journey
- Cross-device behavior (mobile vs desktop differences)
- Account / post-purchase flows
- Subscription / loyalty / repeat-purchase paths
Prototypes
- Figma prototypes for key flows (PDP, PLP, checkout)
- Mobile-first interaction patterns
- Variant picker, configurator, bundle UX
- Cart / drawer behaviour
- Empty / error / loading state design
Validation & hand-off
- Moderated usability tests (5–8 participants)
- A/B test plan tied to research findings
- Dev-ready specs with tokens and edge cases
- Loom-led hand-off for engineering
- 30 days of design support post-launch
Process
How this service runs end to end
The same six-step shape we use across every Haxtiv project — adapted to the specifics of this scope.
01
Discover
Audit, intent, and the part nobody is saying out loud
We open with a working session — not a deck. We pull analytics, crawl the existing site, audit the brand, and interview the people closest to revenue. We surface the friction inside the team, not just the friction on the screen.
02
Define
Sitemap, story, and the metrics that actually matter
We define the audience journeys, the commercial pages we are willing to defend, the SEO architecture, and the measurable outcomes. You get a shape of the project that survives feedback because it was built on evidence.
03
Design
Editorial system, art-directed, never templated
Type, grid, motion, and tone built as a system. We design the hero, the long pages, the unloved corners, and the empty states. Every screen looks like it belongs to the same studio. Nothing is parked for later.
04
Build
Production code your team can keep
WordPress, Shopify, or page builder — we build clean, accessible, performant, and documented. Component-led, naming you'll recognize next year, and a changelog your in-house team can read.
05
Launch
Migration without losing rankings or sleep
Pre-launch crawl, redirect map, schema and metadata cutover, performance baseline, and a launch playbook. We run the deploy with you, not at you.
06
Grow
Care plan, CRO sprints, and quiet improvements
We stay involved. Monthly performance reports, security and core updates, and CRO sprints that compound. The site gets better the longer you keep us.
What this looks like in production
Numbers we earn, not numbers we round up.
Sites shipped
across 27 countries
Studio hours
delivered since 2019
Avg conversion lift
post-redesign clients
Client retention
into year two
In their words
Senior teams who chose us.
Haxtiv replatformed our marketing site without losing a single ranking. We saw organic leads up 38% inside the first quarter and the editorial team finally has a layout system they don't fight.
Mara Iglesias
VP Marketing · Lumenwave Health
Headless WordPress redesign
Our previous Shopify build was a Frankenstein of apps. The Haxtiv team simplified the stack, rebuilt the PDP and CRO patterns, and our store is faster and more profitable than it has ever been.
Daniel Korver
Founder · Northbound Goods
Shopify Plus rebuild
Frequently asked
Answers worth asking for.
Don't see the question you're holding? Send it to [email protected] and we'll answer the same day.
Continue reading
Where to go next
Start here
Brief us — we'll start from research, not from best practice.
30-minute call. We'll review the funnel and share a fair quote.