LET'S TALK
Grunt Apparel
Timeline:
Tools Used:
Personal Project
5 Weeks
Figma, Wix
Grunt Apparel is a patriotic lifestyle brand that sells veteran-themed, American-made t-shirts and gear. Their customer base includes veterans, active-duty military, patriots, and supporters of the armed forces. While the brand had a strong identity and loyal customer base, its complex e-commerce website was limiting growth, frustrating users, and underperforming in conversions.
User Persona: Mike Ramirez
Age: 35
Occupation: Army Veteran & Firefighter
Location: Texas
Shopping Behavior
Mobile-first user, impulse buyer during product drops, supports veteran-owned businesses
Pain Points
Slow site, unclear sizing info, hard to filter shirts by theme or fit
Goal
Quickly find gear that reflects his values and checkout with minimal hassle
Scenario
Mike sees a new shirt design on Grunt Apparel’s Instagram and taps the link to buy. On the old site, he would get frustrated trying to find it due to cluttered navigation and poor mobile load speed—often abandoning the process. With the redesigned site, he lands on a fast, streamlined homepage, finds the shirt in seconds, and checks out in under a minute
Grunt Apparel Desktop and Mobile Website
Empathize
I began by understanding Grunt Apparel’s core audience—patriotic Americans who value service, strength, and freedom. Through customer feedback, user reviews, and stakeholder interviews, I identified key friction points:
The website was cluttered, visually inconsistent, and slow
Users couldn’t easily browse by design, size, or collection
The checkout process was complicated and unintuitive
The mobile experience was frustrating for the majority of users
Define
Grunt Apparel’s website failed to deliver the streamlined, high-impact e-commerce experience that modern shoppers expect. Customers struggled to find products, had difficulty completing purchases, and often abandoned their carts, resulting in lost revenue.
Ideate
To solve these issues, I mapped out essential features:
Clean, high-contrast UI to match the brand’s bold aesthetic
Easy filtering and sorting for product discovery
Clear product detail pages with sizing guides and reviews
Seamless, mobile-optimized checkout
Performance improvements for faster load times
Prototype
I created wireframes and mockups that prioritized:
Featured collections on the homepage
An improved navigation menu with dropdowns for Men, Women, Collections, and Gear
A user-friendly product page with large visuals, and CTA buttons
A streamlined checkout with upsell modules and cart reminders
Testing
I conducted user testing with 10 participants from Grunt Apparel’s audience segment. Tasks included:
Finding a product by theme
Adding it to cart and checking out
Using filters to browse by size or color
Accessing order tracking info and return policies
Testing validated the new structure and exposed a few areas of friction, which were refined before launch
Conclusion
The Grunt Apparel e-commerce redesign was a strategic overhaul built around real customer behavior, brand identity, and performance needs. By applying the Design Thinking process, we delivered a solution that not only looks sharp but drives measurable results—helping the brand grow its reach, build loyalty, and boost sales in a highly competitive market.