Powered jewelers sell more

Nivoda is a global B2B marketplace transforming how jewelers source and purchase diamonds. With rapid growth and expansion into new markets, the company aimed to refine its product experience, making it easier and more intuitive for jewelers to compare, evaluate, and order inventory — all in one platform.
Holux was brought in to support Nivoda’s Product and UX teams in uncovering usability issues, gathering customer insights, and shaping product priorities to enhance user satisfaction and retention.

Problem statement

Despite strong traction in the jewelry industry, Nivoda’s platform had growing complexity as more features and suppliers were added. Jewelers were struggling with:

  • Navigating large volumes of similar diamond listings.
  • Understanding feature differences quickly.
  • Completing repeat orders efficiently.
  • Limited visibility into past user behavior or friction points.
  • Nivoda needed a deeper understanding of user needs to inform both short-term optimizations and longer-term roadmap priorities.
  • Date

    Mar 2022

  • Client Name

    Nivoda

  • Tools

    Bechmark, Personas, User flow, Wireframes, Prototypes, UI

Research

Stakeholder Alignment

During the project, Holux worked closely with different internal stakeholders:

  • Product Managers to align priorities with the roadmap.
  • Customer Support to review recurring friction points.
  • UX/UI Designers to translate insights into actionable improvements.

    • The approach was agile and strategic, involving weekly review sessions and iterative proposals. The focus was on enhancing usability in core workflows such as search, comparison, and order placement.

Personas
Personas
Personas
Personas

Define

User Insights

To better understand how jewelers interacted with Nivoda’s platform, we conducted a series of remote user interviews and distributed targeted surveys. This mixed-methods approach allowed us to validate internal assumptions and uncover pain points rooted in real behavior and expectations.

  • Unclear Comparison: Users found it difficult to distinguish key differences between similar diamonds, which often led to hesitation or lack of confidence during the decision-making process.
  • Confusing Filters: Several filter attributes were either poorly understood or did not behave as expected, resulting in frustration and misaligned search results.
  • Inefficient Reordering: Users who frequently reordered inventory faced unnecessarily long workflows, lacking shortcuts or intuitive access to past purchases.
  • Ambiguous Microcopy: Unclear or overly technical wording around pricing, availability, and purchase terms created doubt and slowed down the buying process.

These insights shaped the foundation for our UX strategy, helping us prioritize improvements that would directly enhance usability, trust, and conversion.

ux-research
ux-research
ux-research
ux-research

Research

UX Best practices

After conducting extensive research, We've identified the main pain points that customers face when shopping for diamonds. Based on the insights gathered, Holux delivered several actionable proposals:

  • A restructured filtering system, with clearer hierarchy, grouped categories, and revised labeling.
  • A redesigned comparison tool allowing users to easily identify key product differences.
  • An optimized reordering flow, reducing the number of steps and introducing quick access from order history.
  • A full microcopy and visual language review, improving trust and clarity with icons, badges, and alert cues.
Personas
Personas
Personas
Personas

Defining

Figma Design System Manager

As part of our UX collaboration with Nivoda, we contributed to the development and refinement of a Design System in Figma to support consistent, scalable UI design across teams and product areas.

Key Components Delivered:

  • Typography styles aligned with hierarchy and readability standards.
  • Color tokens optimized for clarity, accessibility, and brand alignment.
  • Reusable components (buttons, inputs, tags, cards) with clear naming conventions.
  • Variants and auto-layout logic for flexible, responsive usage.
  • Documentation and usage guidelines to onboard new designers and improve team handoff.

How it improved the product at Nivoda:

  • Consistency: Reduced UI inconsistencies across modules and improved overall design coherence.
  • Speed: Enabled faster iteration and prototyping by using pre-built, validated components.
  • Scalability: Made it easier for distributed teams to contribute to the product while maintaining visual and interaction standards.
  • Collaboration: Strengthened alignment between design, product, and engineering by using shared references and tokens.

UI Design

UI and Master Components

Key Improvements Delivered:

  1. A redesigned comparison interface highlighting relevant diamond specs.
  2. A refined filtering system with clear categories and intuitive logic.
  3. An optimized reordering experience with faster access to previous purchases.
  4. A full review of microcopy and visual cues to increase clarity and reduce cognitive load.

Final Results

This project with Nivoda was a strong example of how user-centered research can directly shape product strategy and deliver measurable impact. By uncovering real customer pain points and aligning cross-functional teams around those insights, we were able to design solutions that not only improved usability but also strengthened the platform’s value for its core users.

Working alongside Nivoda’s talented internal team, we laid the foundation for a more scalable, intuitive, and trustworthy B2B experience — while empowering their product and design functions with a validated, research-driven approach for future growth.

Impact:

  • +30% task success rate in usability testing.
  • –40% time-to-reorder for returning users.
  • Stronger alignment across product, design, and customer teams.
  • Foundation set for scalable, research-informed product development.