EST
Seamless Design and Development for a Digital Dreamscape
Elevating the Online World of Californian Fashion Label Xirena
Xírena, founded by Creative Director Dierdre Roffoni, is a Californian fashion brand born out of wanderlust. With a timeless and effortless aesthetic, Xírena is known for its iconic red bar tack and delivers on their promise of the softest fabrics and comfortable silhouettes. They approached the team at Half Helix looking to enhance their online presence. Dissatisfied with their existing website's limited sections and underperforming PDP, Xírena sought a modernized experience that would effectively convey their rich brand and product story. The all-female Half Helix team designed and developed a beautiful and performant new site for Xírena, with the user-friendly interface they needed to empower non-technical brand operators to make changes, create new sections, and easily merchandise products. With additional features such as accessibility optimizations, a highly customizable backend, pre-merchandising functionality, and the launch of internationalization, Half Helix delivered a modernized website that exceeded Xírena's expectations and positioned the brand for continued growth in the fashion industry.
Disciplines
- Shopify Development
- UX/UI Design
- Global-e Integration
Location
Visit Live Site
01
Captivating Editorial Design
In collaboration with Xírena, Half Helix crafted a minimalistic, editorial, and highly intuitive design that prioritized user experience. The revamped PDP and PLP placed a strong emphasis on product imagery, allowing the brand’s editorial images and merchandise to take center stage. To enhance product discoverability, the website incorporated effective filters across all pages and leveraged swatches and visually compelling product imagery. The Half Helix team skillfully integrated Xírena's lookbook images to create shoppable editorial moments throughout the website, further amplifying the brand's storytelling. Subtle yet captivating animations were strategically implemented to create a dreamy, immersive, and luxurious experience. From gentle scrolls in the PDP to refined hover states and seamless transitions between color swatch options, every animation was meticulously calibrated down to the millisecond. The end result was an immersive brand experience that not only captivated visitors but also drove conversions through an optimized and high-performing website.
02
Empowering Admin through Development
The Half Helix team developed a robust and user-friendly backend system to empower Xírena's brand operators to effortlessly manage the site's content to ensure their online presence remains dynamic and fresh. The content team could easily modify text positioning, text coloring, hover states, and more, down to the pixel, providing them with the flexibility to adapt the design to suit their content. This level of control empowered the Xírena team to showcase their imagery in unique and impactful ways, without being constrained by rigid design templates. Additionally, a custom functionality was developed to support pre-merchandising of pages which allowed the merchandise team to see product quantity information and make informed decisions about the products to include on specific pages. By providing this additional information, Half Helix enabled the Xírena team to curate a tailored shopping experience and strategically showcase their products.
03
Subtle Features to Elevate Design
To enhance the design, the development team at Half Helix utilized an intersection observer to monitor the user's position on the screen in relation to scroll position. This approach ensured that images loaded in beautifully and elegantly as users scrolled, enhancing the luxurious experience. The implementation was carefully calibrated to deliver consistent performance across different screen sizes, providing a seamless experience across mobile and desktop devices. Additionally, a custom carousel was developed for the bottom module on various pages, creating a natural scrolling effect that seamlessly integrated with the overall design. The entire site was also built with a focus on accessibility, ensuring easy navigation for both keyboard and mouse users. Half Helix implemented features and optimizations to adhere to accessibility standards, enabling all users to have a smooth and inclusive browsing experience.
04
Launching their Internationalization Strategy
One of Xírena’s goals with the new site was to expand their reach and ship their products globally. To support their internationalization strategy, Half Helix integrated with Global-e, a comprehensive solution for international e-commerce. The integration enabled Xírena to seamlessly handle international shipping, duties, returns, and other essential elements of cross-border transactions. Furthermore, we customized the look and feel to allow shoppers to browse and shop by country instead of currency, providing a localized shopping experience and streamlining the international purchasing process.
