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REVERE THE BRAND is a local online clothing store based out of Southern California, initially aimed at creating a community of women who “support and empower each other to reach their fullest potential.” However, they are now wondering what is next for the business after displaying stagnant activity a year since their launch in December 2021.
Since they were a newly-launched company, REVERE prioritized the development of an easy-to-use online store, favoring functionality over elaborate design elements aimed at enhancing the shopping experience for potential returning customers.
However, the current website lacks a gender-inclusive design, which is crucial for aligning with REVERE's future plans to introduce menswear products alongside their existing offerings targeted primarily at women.
Before diving into competitor research, it was most important to evaluate analytical data and understand what it's telling us. I retrieved the data from REVERE's current support platform, Shopify, and looked at the following data through its definitions:
By the looks of REVERE’s data analytics provided by Shopify, we witness a clear problem in retaining returning customers and increasing visitor traffic and sessions.
Stakeholders define the reason behind the problem is due to limited product issue and lack of promotion. As more products continue to sell, it caused a decrease in supply and the brand had to cut back on promoting the products via social and email, thus causing a dive in visitors and sessions.
Their month of launch, December 2021, was their busiest
Product issue/Shortage of Supply = Less Promotion = Less Visitors
As of Jan 2023, the returning customer rate is 0% due to product issue
The core problem is failing to retain returning customers and inviting new visitors
After analyzing the business' data and determining their core problem in retaining their customer base, I took in a full assessment of what we currently have as their active website, in order to highlight where we should focus most of the redesign.
In part of understanding the data is connecting with previous users to gain insight on real user opinion of the current website, as well as to understand their mindset when shopping online. I talked to 3 participants who have previously shopped with REVERE THE BRAND in attempt to learn what does or doesn't work for them with the current website, and determine what makes an enjoyable and effective online shopping experience.
Next, I conducted a survey of 25 people to gain a broader understanding of the level of interest in Spotify's social feature, and to gain insight into their opinions on the platform and the potential for music sharing to enhance social connections.
I wrapped up my research by lasting looking at competitor companies and products to analyze their strengths and weaknesses for potential market gaps. This served as the foundations of future ideation for features.
Shopping guides being too broad or vague can make the gift shopping process overwhelming, adding on stress and deter users from finding anything truly potential.
If it's curated or personalized, it helps users feel like they have their own personal shopping assistant, someone who is specially there to help only them.
A huge online marketplace like Amazon can be hectic, but is actually user-friendly due to its intuitive UX design and layout.
These websites feature strong call-to-action buttons on their landing page to immediately captivate users.
All of the websites have effective categorization to sort their products which makes for easy navigation.
All stores utilize a neutral black/white color palette and allow the vibrancy of their images to set the tone of their brand and also serve as main selling points.
Next, an affinity map was created to organize and synthesize the data collected from user research, primarily from user interviews. It helped in gathering common themes surrounding motivations, pain points, and needs, which will essentially create the ideal user persona for this product.
Need #1: Users need to get a gift in time to prevent feeling stressed.
Need #2: Users need a way to discover ideal gifts.
Need #3: Users need a form of guidance to know what to shop for others.
My research findings brought me to generalize my user as the millennial online shopper.
PAIN POINTS - Overcomplicated navigation systems and unclear policies deters her from purchasing
VALUES - Convenience of shopping online with flexible shipping and return policies
MOTIVATIONS - Shopping for clothes through new brands IF the policies, price, and product information are justifiable
I used my HMW questions as a starting point to ideate multiple solutions, which I then prioritized based on insights gathered from user research.
Following my ideation of key features, I organized a card sorting study that was completed by a total of 7 participants (3M/4F). From this study, I wanted to learn how users categorize information and topics as well as to understand their mental models.
My analysis of the card sorting helped with the development of the sitemap that would outline and expand on my core features and topics.
I made the following changes to REVERE's original structure:
After establishing my core features, I developed 2 task flows to demonstrate the navigation and determine key screens to wireframe.
With my persona in mind, I brainstormed key features that would serve their needs.
Based on my research, I believe that the following features would have an effect on retaining customers and creating an enjoyable online shopping experience:
Through Figma, I began digitally sketching the skeleton of the possible redesign of REVERE's key screens, and made them responsive for desktop and mobile.
With the early feedback I received on the sketches, I eliminated a Promotion pop-up module as it seemed distracting and ineffective in gathering email sign-ups. I decided to relocate it to the footer to be a fixed element.
REVERE's end goal of this redesign is to reimagine a brand new look for their store and create a gender-inclusive shopping space for their future launches. I plan on introducing a sense of modernism and simplicity by using a neutral color palette and a sans serif typeface for uniformity.
With my foundations set up through wireframes and visual branding, I can now begin piecing everything together by updating the brand's content and playing with the UI elements. With this, I produced high-fidelity frames for my initial prototype for responsive devices through Figma.
For my usability testing rounds, I asked 4 users to test my initial prototype on both desktop and mobile devices.
This helped me gain insight and feedback on the visual design, navigation fluidity, and flow of completing average shopping tasks such as finding products and adding to bag.
100% of the users were able to complete the tasks without any confusion.
100% of the users were satisfied with the redesign, notably enjoying the design layout and aesthetics of a modern online store.
I received feedback on a few visual design choices, including:
Here's how I iterated on this feedback:
On the home feed, I rephrased 'Upcoming Events' to 'A little reminder ⌛️' to express how quickly events are approaching; added how many number of days are away, to prevent any date confusion; and pushed content higher up to highlight its value.
Replaced Saved Gifts with quicker access to curated "Gifty Guides" so users can begin exploring potential gifts and provided context into what "Gifty Guides" meant.
Reframed the original content to create space for saved items so users will always be reminded of gift options whenever they visit a Friend's Profile.
Rephrased 'lists' as 'collections' to mitigate confusion and transitioned the save function to a vertical format. This change was aimed at optimizing user-friendliness, allowing for improved content viewing and the ability to save to multiple options.
Explore a new social presence called Spotify Circle where users can share music, see what friends are listening to, and interact with friends to engage in a whole new music-bonding experience.
Check out a friend's shared music activity on their user profile, along with discovering your music taste compatibility with them.
With this feature, you can effortlessly utilize Spotify's existing Blend feature and create a mix that fits both of your tastes.
Spotify Circle will also introduce two new playlists, allowing for users to discover music outside of their preferred genre as well as learn what friends are listening to through the convenience of a playlist.
Send song recommendations to friends directly within the Spotify app to make music sharing easier and faster than before.
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Sign up and complete your profile by adding your information and hobbies or interests to customize your own curated guide and begin discovering gifts, even for yourself.
Event reminders are a top priority so you will never miss a chance to get a gift for an important date. Let it lead you to the friend's profile so you can begin shopping for them or pick up where you left off.
Add a friend into GIFTY by inputting their information (as with your own profile) to begin exploring numerous gift options that were curated just for them. And saving it to buy later is as easy as a single tap.
Like what you found while browsing? Save it to a collection you made or a friend you think it'd be perfect for. All within one action.
Collaborating with a local business for this project pushed me to get comfortable in communicating with stakeholders and working to align their business goals with user goals. I hope I have delivered an acceptable redesign for their online store that could help with future launches and solve their core problem if they decide to actually rebrand their store with my design in the future.
Update: As of January 2024, the owners of REVERE THE BRAND had decided to temporarily close their online store to plan their next business steps. The online website currently cannot be viewed.
