Role · UX Audit & Redesign · External · March 2026

Happiclap - a gifting app where users couldn't find the gift button.

A live product, 40+ user reviews, and a heuristic framework. No internal data, no engineering access - just a decision to look closely and say what I saw.

Role
External audit
Tools
Figma · Heuristics
Duration
3 weeks
Status
Published
01 - Context

I came across it while buying a gift.

I was looking for a birthday present online and landed on Happiclap. Within 30 seconds I was confused - not because the product was broken, but because something made me feel like I was doing the gifting wrong, not the app. I went back and looked more carefully, then decided to audit it properly.

One thing upfront: I wasn't hired for this. No analytics, no session recordings, no internal context. Everything here comes from the live product and 40+ public App Store and Play Store reviews. This is external - some decisions are inferences, not facts. I'll say when.

02 - Problem

The product grew features without growing clarity.

A gifting platform has one job: help someone find and send a meaningful gift in as few decisions as possible. What I found was a product organised around what it sold, not around what the user was trying to do. Features had accumulated. Navigation had multiplied. Clarity hadn't kept up.

03 - What I noticed

The feeling first. The cause second.

The first thing I noticed wasn't the navigation - it was my own two-second pause on landing. That pause is the symptom. The navigation was the cause.

Navigation
Two navigation systems stacked vertically, each with its own logic, neither referencing the other. That evaluation is friction, even when it's invisible.
CTAs
Four primary-weight buttons on the homepage, all rendered with equal urgency. When everything is equally urgent, nothing is.
Categories
"Personalised gifts" appeared three ways with three different labels. A symptom of a product that hadn't decided how to organise itself.
User reviews (40+ public signals)
Repeated pattern: "hard to find what I want," "too many options, got lost." The path to the product was the problem, not the product.
04 - Constraints

What I was working without.

01
No user data. Observations came from direct use and public reviews - better than nothing, worse than real sessions.
02
No technical access. Every decision here is a proposal, not a shipped change.
03
No internal context. Some friction I identified might have had business logic I couldn't see.
05 - Decisions

Organise around intent, not taxonomy.

A user arriving at Happiclap is in one of three states: they know what they want, they have an occasion and need ideas, or they're exploring. I chose occasion-led browsing as the primary path - it contains the other two and matches the most common gifting scenario.

Collapse two navigation systems into one
Four items: occasions, search, wishlist, cart. Everything else moved into occasion flows.
One primary CTA on the homepage
"Find a gift" - occasion-led, singular. Secondary surfaces deprioritised, not removed.
One taxonomy, one pathway per category
If something can be reached three ways with three labels, that's ambiguity, not flexibility.
06 - Before / after

What actually changed.

Before
Before redesign
After · proposed
After redesign
Before
2 navigation systems, 7+ items
4 primary-weight CTAs
3–4 pathways per category
After · proposed
1 system, 4 items
1 primary CTA
1 pathway per category
50%+
Reduction in decision surface
2→1
Navigation systems
4→1
Homepage CTAs
07 - Tradeoffs

What I gave up to get what I got.

Less browsable, more navigable
The original design was probably good for discovery by accident. I think the intent bet is right for a gifting platform - I couldn't verify it without data.
Deprioritised deals without revenue context
Moving promotions below the fold was a UX call made without business context. A stronger version starts by understanding what that surface does commercially.
08 - Reflection

What I'd do differently.

Start with even five user interviews. Better than nothing. Not a substitute for watching a real person navigate without guidance.

Understand the business before moving its surfaces. I made a UX call in isolation from a product one. That's the gap I'd close first.

The honest version of what this shows: I can look at a live product, form a point of view, and explain the reasoning - including the parts I'm uncertain about. That combination is more useful in a product role than a cleaner narrative that hides the gaps.

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