Sensory Imagination is an Irish business supplying carefully selected sensory products, accessibility tools, educational resources, braille and audio books, oral care essentials and calming tools to children, adults, caregivers, therapists and educators across Ireland. The business is built around a clear purpose: making specialist sensory and accessibility products easier to find, understand and purchase for the people who need them.
When Anne at Sensory Imagination came to Designwest, the brief was not simply to build an ecommerce store. It was to create a shopping experience that felt as considered and supportive as the products it was selling. For a business serving parents, carers and educators who may be navigating sensory needs for the first time, the website had to reduce barriers rather than create them. That meant getting the design, the content structure and the ecommerce architecture right from the start.
This is how we approached it.
Brand And Visual Direction: Purple, Wellbeing Tones And The Sunflower
The first decision was colour. Sensory Imagination had an established purple brand identity and it was the right call to keep it as the principal brand colour throughout the site. Purple carries recognition and consistency for the business. Diluting it with a wide range of competing colours would have weakened the brand identity without any functional gain.
What we did instead was introduce lighter green and blue wellbeing tones selectively throughout individual sections of the site. The key word there is selectively. Our developer Thara’s recommendation was that the secondary colours should support the purple brand rather than compete with it, and Anne agreed with that approach during the design review.
The resulting palette achieves a specific balance: colourful enough to feel warm and inviting, calm enough not to overwhelm. For a sensory products website in particular, visual restraint is not a stylistic preference. It is a user experience decision. A site that is itself visually noisy creates a contradiction with the products it is selling.
The homepage hero sits in a soft sage green tone, with the brand purple carried across the navigation, category tiles and product sections. The overall impression is calm, professional and approachable, without veering into the clinical aesthetic of a medical supplier or the chaotic vibrancy that characterises some sensory resource sites.
Sunflower imagery was incorporated deliberately throughout the site, reflecting the internationally recognised hidden disability sunflower symbol. This was not decorative. The sunflower is used on the homepage, in the categories section and in the footer as a quiet but meaningful signal to visitors with non-visible disabilities that this is a business that sees and acknowledges them.
Imagery: Representation Matters
Imagery was revised during the design development specifically to better represent the audience Sensory Imagination serves. The final site uses photography that reflects the diversity of people who use sensory and accessibility products: children and adults, different ages, different backgrounds.
This was not a token consideration. For a business whose customers include people with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, visual impairment and hearing needs, seeing people like themselves or their children in the visual language of the website is part of what makes the shopping experience feel inclusive rather than generic.
Navigation And Product Architecture: Reducing The Knowledge Barrier
One of the specific challenges on a sensory ecommerce website is that visitors arrive with very different levels of knowledge. Some know exactly what they need. Others know only that a child in their life is struggling with sensory regulation, or that they need to find something appropriate for a specific age group or challenge. Others may be educators or therapists looking for resources they can use in a professional context.
A standard category navigation based purely on product type would fail the second and third groups. The site architecture had to give every type of visitor a clear path in.
The navigation on the finished site is clean and direct: Home, All Products, About and Contact, with the product categories accessible through a persistent header dropdown. The dropdown covers nine categories: Sensory Products, Sensory Exploration, Oral Care Essentials, Communication Support, Calming Tools, Calm and Relaxation, Braille and Audio, Books and Learning, and Accessibility Support.
Below the homepage hero, four featured categories give immediate visual pathways into the most common customer needs: Sensory Products, Communication Support, Calming Tools, and Braille and Audio. A further section organises the catalogue by need rather than product type: Communication Support, Sensory Exploration, Focus and Concentration, Calm and Relaxation, and Accessibility Support.
This dual structure, product categories for those who know what they want, need-based navigation for those who do not, was central to the UX brief. The objective was to reduce the amount of prior knowledge a customer needed before they could begin finding appropriate products.
Ecommerce Development: Stripe, Shipping And A Functional Store
Once the visual direction was approved, Designwest moved into full ecommerce development. The homepage was built first as the principal visual and UX reference for the rest of the site, then the design system was extended through the inner pages, shop and product catalogue.
The ecommerce component required considerably more than individual product pages. The full development scope covered:
Product catalogue and categorisation, structuring individual products with descriptions, pricing, imagery and category assignments across the nine product categories.
Stripe payment integration. Anne established a Stripe account during the development process and provided access credentials so that the payment functionality could be built directly into the site. The checkout experience is clean and straightforward, with no unnecessary steps between basket and completion.
Shipping and delivery configuration, incorporating delivery regions, methods, timescales and applicable charges into the purchasing workflow.
Store information and customer communication, including the contact page, social media integration and the email newsletter signup in the footer. Subscribers receive updates on new sensory products, accessibility resources and exclusive offers.
Legal and privacy pages. Sensory Imagination supplied dedicated Website Terms and Conditions and a Privacy Policy for incorporation into the finished site.
The wishlist functionality allows customers to save products for later, which is particularly useful for customers who are researching options over time rather than purchasing immediately.
Responsive Build: Mobile First For An Irish Ecommerce Audience
The initial design and development work began with the desktop experience before progressing through responsive optimisation. This allowed us to establish the visual hierarchy and ecommerce structure first, then adapt it appropriately for different screen sizes.
For an ecommerce business, mobile usability is not optional. Customers increasingly discover products and make purchasing decisions from their phones. The Sensory Imagination site retains clear navigation, readable product content and a straightforward purchasing pathway on mobile, rather than reproducing a desktop layout at reduced scale.
The mobile navigation uses a clean hamburger menu that exposes the main navigation and category structure without overwhelming a small screen. Product pages, the shop grid and the checkout all perform cleanly across device sizes.
The Result
The finished Sensory Imagination website at sensoryimagination.ie is a fully functional, professionally designed ecommerce platform built around the specific needs of a specialist Irish business and the audience it serves.
The design uses Sensory Imagination’s purple brand identity, carefully introduced complementary tones, inclusive imagery, the hidden disability sunflower symbol, and a product architecture built around how customers actually think about sensory needs rather than how a product catalogue is typically organised. Stripe payments, shipping configuration, legal pages and newsletter integration give the business everything it needs to operate and grow.
What makes this project particularly interesting from a Designwest perspective is the combination of design sensitivity and commercial rigour it required. This was not a business where a standard ecommerce template and a generic colour palette would have served the client or their customers. Every decision, from the use of secondary colours to the navigation structure to the sunflower imagery, was made in the context of who would be using the site and why.
Visit the site: sensoryimagination.ie
Key Takeaways
- The brand palette uses Sensory Imagination’s established purple as the primary colour, with green and blue wellbeing tones introduced selectively in individual sections rather than allowed to compete with the core identity.
- The sunflower symbol, associated internationally with the hidden disability community, was incorporated deliberately throughout the site as a meaningful signal of inclusion.
- Product navigation was designed around a dual structure: category-based for customers who know what they need, and need-based for customers who are starting from a different point.
- Ecommerce development covered Stripe payment integration, shipping configuration, wishlist functionality, newsletter signup, legal pages, and a nine-category product catalogue.
- Responsive design was built to serve mobile customers with the same clean navigation and straightforward checkout experience as desktop.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Designwest build for Sensory Imagination?
Designwest designed and developed a full ecommerce website for Sensory Imagination at sensoryimagination.ie. The project covered brand interpretation, UX and interface design, responsive development, a nine-category product catalogue, Stripe payment integration, shipping and delivery configuration, wishlist functionality, newsletter integration, and legal and privacy page incorporation.
What was the design brief for the Sensory Imagination website?
The brief was to create a welcoming, accessible and commercially functional ecommerce experience for a specialist sensory and accessibility products business. The site needed to serve parents, carers, educators and therapists, many of whom may be navigating sensory needs for the first time. The design had to be calm, professional and inclusive without feeling clinical or generic.
Why was the purple brand colour retained as the primary palette?
Sensory Imagination had an established purple identity. Rather than introducing a wide range of competing colours that would dilute that recognition, Designwest retained purple as the primary colour and introduced lighter green and blue tones selectively to add warmth and a wellbeing feel. This approach was discussed with Anne during the design development and agreed before the concept moved into full development.
Why was sunflower imagery included in the site design?
The sunflower is the internationally recognised symbol of the hidden disability scheme, used to indicate that a person may have a non-visible disability that is not immediately apparent. Incorporating the sunflower throughout the site was a deliberate design decision, not a decorative one. It communicates to visitors with non-visible disabilities that this is a business that acknowledges and includes them.
How did Designwest approach the product navigation structure?
The site was designed with two parallel navigation routes through the product catalogue. Category-based navigation serves customers who know what type of product they are looking for. Need-based navigation, organised around Communication Support, Sensory Exploration, Focus and Concentration, Calm and Relaxation, and Accessibility Support, serves customers who are starting from a challenge or requirement rather than a product type. This dual structure reduces the knowledge barrier for first-time visitors.
What ecommerce functionality was built into the site?
The ecommerce build included Stripe payment integration, a nine-category product catalogue, shipping and delivery configuration, wishlist functionality, a newsletter subscription system, and full legal and privacy page integration. The checkout experience is clean and straightforward, designed to minimise friction at the point of purchase.
How was responsive design handled on this project?
Development began with the desktop experience to establish the visual hierarchy and ecommerce structure, then progressed through responsive optimisation for tablet and mobile. The mobile site uses a clean hamburger navigation, product pages and a checkout that perform clearly on small screens rather than reproducing the desktop layout at reduced scale.
Does Designwest design and develop ecommerce websites in Ireland?
Yes. Sensory Imagination is one of a number of ecommerce projects Designwest has delivered for Irish businesses. If you are looking for an ecommerce website that combines professional design with a functional, commercially ready build, contact Designwest at info@designwest.ie or call the Mayo office on 094 938 2000.
Declan Foley is an Irish Creative Director with over 30 years of experience in graphic design, branding, print, and digital media. As Creative Director of Designwest Creatives Ltd, he leads design projects for Irish businesses, government departments, and organisations nationwide, from brand identity and publication design to large-scale print campaigns. Explore the portfolio at designwest.ie.
