Department store House of Fraser has relaunched its website and has designed it with touchscreen devices in mind.

The redesign is the first major change to its website’s look since July 2011.

House of Fraser opted to design for touchscreens first rather than desktop as more than 50% of its traffic comes from mobile devices.

House of Fraser’s new site is designed to enhance user experience with new header and navigation menus allowing customers to ‘shop by department’ or ‘shop by brand’.

The homepage and category hub pages also have a fresh look with a quicker load time and more interactive elements designed to maximise the rate of conversion. 

House of Fraser said increasing download speeds will ensure shoppers with slower connections are still able to download relevant pages within a “reasonable timescale”.

Product listing pages now feature three shots per row, where it used to have four, which allows larger images to be displayed.  Product page images also have a new ‘super zoom’ feature which offers customers a clearer view of the product. 

House of Fraser executive director for multichannel Andy Harding said: “Consumer shopping habits are constantly evolving and given we now see more than 50% of our online traffic coming from mobile devices, we have changed our design strategy to ensure we provide the best possible experience for our online customers.

“We are always looking at ways to maximise customer shopping experiences and we’re confident our new look and feel website will be well received and will help continue to drive growth this year.”