UI/UX Design, Behavioural Nudging, and the Conversion Puzzle at Kidsplay Toys & Games

Abstract

Rajan Krishnamurthy, a UX consultant brought in by the founders of Kidsplay Toys & Games Pvt Ltd, spent an afternoon in early 2025 conducting a heuristic walkthrough of the company's Shopify website. He used his screen-recording tool and notepad to explore the homepage while checking the product listings and product detail page and bundle offer section and checkout flow. He identified a paradox at the session's conclusion because the website displayed attractive visuals and the products showed creative design yet the digital path through the site caused users to leave the site at every point. The homepage opened with an auto-playing video but offered no guiding text to anchor the visitor's attention. The grid displayed eight product universe categories which each showed a planet-themed image and a name that included Pro sticky art kits, Persketch (drawing board), and Clay (modelling clay) yet the grid lacked any information about what these terms meant to people visiting the site for the first time. The product detail page for Shapes premium, Kidsplay's premium Rs. 9,999 strategy game, displayed a prominent "Sold out" label alongside "95 in stock," a factual contradiction that would unsettle any buyer. The URL for the Wishlist page contained a spelling mistake. The header contained social media icons which did not connect to any destination. The Customer Reviews section across all product pages displayed the message: "Be the first to write a review." Rajan leaned back and reflected on a principle he had taught in design workshops: users do not read websites, they scan them. Every website scan that users performed at Kidsplay sent out an accidental message that its designers had not intended. The question he now faced required him to decide between site improvement and site improvement through UI/UX design with behavioural levers that follow nudge principles.