Homepage Refresh
£150M+
Annual revenue
4M+
Monthly sessions
Top 6
Category carousel ranking
How months of trust-building, data-driven advocacy, and incremental design improvements transformed DFYNE's template homepage into a premium shopping experience for a 150M+ brand.
The problem
- The homepage still followed an early hero-grid template that had not evolved with the scale of the business.
- Women's campaigns could push men's content so far down the page that the brand looked single-gendered to some visitors.
- There was no structured entry into categories, best sellers, new arrivals, or collection-level discovery.
- Repeated 'Shop Now' CTAs, oversized gutters, and inconsistent layout spacing weakened the premium positioning the brand wanted.
- The homepage was politically sensitive because the CEO had originally built it himself.
How I approached it
- 1
Relationship building
Worked closely with the CEO over time to understand brand parameters and earn trust before larger homepage changes were proposed.
- 2
Data-backed advocacy
Used category search data, sales reporting, and Clarity heatmaps to make the case for each change with evidence.
- 3
Incremental delivery
Shipped changes progressively so each small win made the next change easier to support.
- 4
Cross-functional coordination
Worked with campaign, marketing, developers, and the digital team to execute a more coherent homepage system.
What I changed
- Reset the desktop layout defaults to a 24px gutter, 24px section gap, and 40px spacing for hero buttons and hero title/logo lockups, while keeping the logo centred consistently on desktop and mobile.
- Tightened product card geometry from 8px radius to 2px to better align with the brand's sharper visual language.
- Introduced a category carousel with hover video previews to create stronger product-type discovery from the homepage.
- Added a collection carousel so ranges like Impact, Origin, Vision, Dynamic, and Signature could be explored as distinct destinations.
- Replaced repeated 'Shop Now' buttons with quieter chevron navigation and reduced inter-section spacing to make the page feel denser and more premium.
- Created separate men's and women's landing paths so paid traffic could land on content that matched intent more closely.
Before & after
The homepage evolved from a repeated template into a more structured, premium product discovery experience.
Before
- Hero image then product grid repeated across the whole homepage
- 250px margin gutters and inconsistent spacing defaults wasting screen space
- 8px rounded product cards that clashed with the brand's sharper geometry
- 'Shop Now' on every hero section creating visual noise
- No categories, best sellers, or collection structure
- Women's drops pushing men's content off-screen
- Excessive spacing between sections
- Homepage content primarily managed by marketing
After
- Structured sections built around heroes, categories, collections, and clearer discovery routes
- 24px desktop gutters and section gaps with 40px hero spacing, with the logo centred consistently across desktop and mobile
- 2px corner radius aligned with logo geometry and premium positioning
- Chevron navigation replacing repetitive CTA noise
- Category carousel that became a top-clicked homepage section
- Separate men's and women's landing paths
- Reduced spacing and fewer redundant captions
- Digital team ownership of homepage strategy and curation
The Problem
DFYNE's homepage was built on a simple hero-and-grid formula that worked in the brand's early growth stage, when demand was driven by social and influencer traffic. But as the company scaled, the homepage remained a basic storefront rather than a product discovery experience.
That created both UX and brand problems: men's content could disappear during women's campaigns, there was no structured route into categories or collections, and repeated 'Shop Now' CTAs made the page feel noisier and less premium than the brand now wanted. The harder challenge was political as well as design-led, because changing the homepage meant changing something the CEO had originally built himself.
Approach
The refresh was built through progressive trust-building rather than a single redesign pitch. I worked closely with the CEO to understand what was core to the brand, used category search and sales reporting to show where discovery gaps existed, and validated each release through Clarity and post-launch performance signals.
The work also shifted homepage ownership into the digital team, bringing section strategy, content curation, and asset briefing closer to user behaviour rather than campaign schedules alone.
The Solution
The result was not a visual rebrand but a systematic elevation of the existing experience. Gutters were reduced, product cards were sharpened, category and collection carousels introduced stronger discovery pathways, and repetitive CTA noise was replaced with more premium navigation patterns.
The homepage also became more intentional in how it handled audience context, including separate men's and women's landing experiences and denser, more purposeful section pacing that respected user time while improving the quality of discovery.
Brand Partnership
A major part of the project was earning the right to change the homepage at all. Rather than framing changes as corrections, I connected each decision to the CEO's own brand ambitions and to business outcomes he cared about, which shifted conversations from personal preference to evidence-backed evolution.
Over time, the relationship moved from cautious gatekeeping to active collaboration, with homepage strategy becoming a shared discussion rather than a defended legacy structure.
Try it
What it did
- The category carousel became one of the top six most-clicked homepage sections, helping validate the direction through behaviour rather than opinion alone.
- The homepage moved from being a basic storefront to a stronger product discovery layer for a brand doing more than 150M in annual revenue.
- The digital team took greater ownership of homepage strategy, content curation, and asset briefing.
- The project built trust with leadership through incremental delivery and data-backed advocacy rather than a single redesign moment.