Uniqlo website redesign shows the tricky balance of unpredictable UX

Sometimes, a single button can bamboozle users, and this is perhaps the case with Uniqlo’s new ‘central navigation button’, fixed to the bottom of its redesigned homepage and revealing all of its product categories.

This button is essential for effectively browsing Uniqlo’s catalogue, but it uses a magnifying glass icon, which many people associate with a simple search bar. Consequently, there have been some disgruntled users voicing their frustration on social media who haven’t yet realised where the menu resides.

One user on X writes, “can you please fix your website – it is impossible to navigate and order anything – i cannot find anything except endless pages of life wear magazine.”

We’ll come to the editorial later, and the way in which the homepage showcases Uniqlo products, which I think is quite effective, but first – how important is it for a website to be predictable?

If we look at the hierarchy of UX components (below), taken from Econsultancy’s guide to User Experience and Interaction Design, you can see predictability is in the middle. After ensuring the UX is viable (capable of doing what the user is trying to achieve) and consistent (in that it solves the same problems in the same way throughout), the next consideration is predictability.

As the authors of the guide write, “On occasion, challenging the user’s predictions might be a key innovation, but implementing an innovative step like that without harming the UX will require great care and attention.”

These words of caution came to mind when I was interacting with the new Uniqlo website and particularly its homepage. I like the redesign (and explain why below) but it may be challenging for first-time users.

You can get a brief overview of the changes in Uniqlo’s service update, which describes the homepage as “simpler, with larger images that make products clearer,” and instructs shoppers to, “scroll for inspiration, recommendations, and more,” and to “use the magnifying glass button to move around the website and see all the product categories at a glance.”

When is a header menu not a header menu?

The issue for some users interacting with the new homepage for the first time is two-fold. First, there’s the aforementioned search-style icon. But also subverting expectations, there is what seems to be a traditional header menu, which you might think would be a category drop down. But what actually happens is that clicking these top buttons simply changes the flavour of the homepage – the big product showcases and editorial shift over from men to women to kids and so on. To the frustrated user, this homepage refresh doesn’t give them the categories they are looking for.

Arguably, if the innovation went further and this header menu was somehow dispensed with altogether, perhaps more users would interrogate the magnifying glass button at the bottom of the screen, but as it is, there are those who assume the header menu may be buggy, or who perhaps scroll through the homepage imagery looking for a category and then try (and fail) to navigate on from there.

Given that the homepage displays a tool-tip style message (see image above) telling users about the new design and directing them to an informational webpage, it might make sense instead to use a tooltip alerting people to the importance of the central navigation button. This would solve a lot of the initial confusion.

Ultimately, the mismatch between design and expectations shouldn’t really be a big deal on the Uniqlo site. Once you’ve figured it out, you’re off and browsing. It’s not going to create any real friction for the user on repeat visits, and it’s a simple change in design that still works nicely, rather than the introduction of friction into a workflow that will annoy the user every time they browse.

So, what’s good about the redesign?

I’ve been thinking for some time that navigation and filtering can really take the fun out of ecommerce, in a category like fashion at least. That doesn’t mean I don’t need faceted navigation, just that websites could often do a better job of serendipitous product discovery without scrolling through a full catalogue.

This dynamic has arguably always been a part of online shopping – how can retailers make a site inspirational and different whilst also ensuring we can all find the precise things we want?

But beyond standing out from the crowd, there are new(er) dynamics with which retailers must contend. Ecommerce and media is in a different place to 2017. Firstly, everybody is on TikTok or Instagram all day, scrolling through vertical videos. How can browsing an ecommerce catalogue on your phone aspire to deliver the same levels of serotonin? When we are in ‘inspire me’ mode, we want video and we want to scroll, we don’t want to swim in a sea of checkboxes and dropdowns.

To this end, I think the Uniqlo homepage does a good job of delivering hero products, categories, and yes, even editorial. This is achieved with big imagery and often full-screen video, too.

The Uniqlo approach feels particularly fresh because every homepage block swipes up and down in what is essentially a vertical carousel, rather than having to do a more ‘manual’ scroll. This makes it feel very similar to the way we interact with Instagram or TikTok – we can dismiss things quickly. Compare this to the ASOS app, for example, which also uses full-screen video, but feels slightly trad in comparison, because you can’t swipe through in one motion.

Ultimately, I think this redesign, though in the short term may have tinkered dangerously with predictability in the middle of the UX hierarchy, longer term, once the nav wrinkles are ironed out, it may enhance ‘brand’ at the top of the pyramid.

What to do with editorial?

There is always a balance to be achieved, and some may go back to the prominence of editorial as a potential misstep. The quote from a user on X at the top of the article mentions LifeWear Magazine, which at time of writing takes pride of place on the homepage as the first big image in the Uniqlo carousel.

Conversion experts might wince at this, given it doesn’t lead directly to the product catalogue, but to a series of features about style and travel that do admittedly link to product pages throughout.

M&S, now reinstalled back at the top of the clothing sales charts in the UK, famously tried to achieve a ‘content and commerce’ blend in its 2014 re-platform, which I quite enjoyed at the time, but which was criticised for a myriad of issues at launch, chiefly around checkout and user accounts, and which led to a drop in sales.

Uniqlo is known for brilliant basics and should always do a good job through its nav of selling t-shirts and underwear. But the brand is also about affordable style, and therefore by making its website feel more like an app experience, and by better showcasing its collaborations and new collections on its homepage, the retailer might push some users towards more premium products in its catalogue or towards unexplored categories and a bigger basket in the long run.

For now though, there may be some short-term pain. When I mentioned the redesign and the nav button to a member of my family, they admitted they had been frustrated with the site earlier in the week when trying to browse. Familiar menu structures and features like breadcrumb trails, consistent across websites, all work together to keep the user anchored and at ease as they browse. Uniqlo asks website users on its update page to vote whether they like the changes – it will be interesting to see what tweaks, if any, are made. After all, as ecommerce businesses across many different categories tinker with technology such as AI-powered search, there are many brands trying to do what Uniqlo is trying to do, namely inspire their customers and reduce friction at the same time.