Overview
Audience
Our target audience is expectant mothers looking for Pinterest- worthy ways to share their pregnancy news with friends and family.
My Role
My role in this project included researching Pinterest and Etsy users, Etsy shops, small boutiques, and new mothers. I also designed a new product for the existing site Lilac and Lucy.
Scope
As this was a course project, there was no budget allowance. It had a strict timeline of one month, and was completed late April of 2022.
Problem
The main problem that I worked on was how to capture and retain more clientele for the existing online boutique Lilac and Lily.
Solution
By incorporating a new product (Pregnancy Announcement Boxes) into my client’s already impressive site, we are setting her store apart from others, while expanding to a larger audience, and ultimately capture and retain more clientele.
Process
Initial Research
I started the process by creating a client survey to help understand her business needs. From my initial client survey, it was clear that my client had specific things that she was doing that was already doing very well. It also showed that there were a few things that could be done to benefit the brand an her site. I made a list of three How Might We statements that served as business requirements.
How Might We:
...make the existing site more visually appealing?
... capture and retain more clientele?
...expand to a larger audience/set the store apart from others?
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User Persona 1
The first persona is Riley. Riley is a typical user of the Lilac and Lucy site.
Journey Map for Persona 1
User Persona 2
The second persona is Ashley. She is the new targeted user for the new product I am developing for the Lilac and Lucy Site.
Empathy Map for Persona 2
Since we already know how to attract the typical user, I wanted to take a minute to think about the new target audience for our new product. I looked around online in baby blogs, Pinterest for pregnant moms, and websites. The target users have slightly different emotions than the typical Lilac and Lucy do. The typical user has already given birth and wants to keep friends and family updated. The new targeted audience has not had the baby yet. She may be a first time mother after years of infertility. She may finally be able to tell a parent that they will be grandparents. This type of user is likely to be more emotional than the typical user, and therefore, would want products that elicit that same emotions when they share the product.
Design Brainstorm
Notes
Ideas
Crazy 8s
Design Solution
Since my client already had a fully functional site with many existing customers, deciding on a scope was very important. There were many directions that I explored working on. After talking with the client about what she was looking for help with specifically, I decided to help her site stand out from other specialized boutiques with an original idea- Pregnancy Announcement Boxes. This was certain to capture and retain more clientele by setting the store apart from others. I was also hoping to make the site more visually appealing along the way by redesigning her landing page a bit.
Story Board
Pregnancy announcement boxes are a mixture between Bridesmaid Proposal Boxes and a standard pregnancy announcement. Pregnancy announcements are not anything new, especially in the age of Pinterest moms. You take a photo or make a video with a cute little sign, or trinket letting all know that you are expecting. After that, you post it on your social media, and watch your followers swoon.
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Since there has been a distinct trend in photos/videos of surprise announcements posted on social media, I thought, what if you could have a box full of things that specifically let the recipient know that you are expecting. I was hoping to use this new type of product in order to drive new users to her site who otherwise might have gone to otherwise very similar specialized boutiques. If she were to advertise these boxes on Pinterest and Etsy using her existing Shopify marketing strategy, she would surely accomplish the main task of expanding to a wider audience by way of setting her store apart from others.
Design Sprint
Photo taken from Design Sprint presentation
Information Archetecture
User Flow
Brand Development
Style Tile and Typography
For the Style Tile, I ended up choosing one of the images to represent the theme for the screens, and built around it. I loved the color of the dress, so I pulled a lot of my colors from there. I chose a sans serif called Montserrat as the font, and made a logo using text.
Prototyping
Low-Fidelity Prototype
User Testing
Next I tested the functionality of the low fidelity prototype with five different users. The prompts I used for the testing were modeled after my User Persona, Ashley.
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Scenario: Imagine that you and your spouse have been trying to conceive for quite some time. You have recently found out that you are pregnant and found a cute site that sells things for expectant mothers.
1. Create a Pregnancy Announcement Box.
2. Create a medium box for a big brother.
3. Choose the blue box design, a blanket set, letter board, tumbler, and t-shirt/onesie set, size medium.
4. Change the tumbler to a stuffed animal set.
5. For the song choice, choose Here Comes the Sun.
6. Complete your order and return to the home page.
Tasks:
Results
Overall Success Rate
83%
The task that had the most challenges was task 1. Three out of the four participants had trouble with this:
These three users did not know that the site had more content beneath the fold. I suspect this is mostly because it is a low fidelity prototype and they aren’t used to working with those. They were able to get to the content a different way than expected, through the top navigation bar. So although all of the users could complete this task, it did cause a bit of confusion for the three.
The only other task that any users had trouble with was Task 3. Although all users were able to successfully complete the task, one user didn’t realize that they had to not only choose the size of the t-shirt, but also add the item to their box.
The users had no issues completing the remainder of the tasks.
Probing Questions
During the interview I also asked five additional questions to try and figure out what users were thinking during the test.
Question 3: Have you seen a product like this before?
None of the participants have ever seen something like this before. Upon further research, I have come across sites that do offer something like this. However I have never seen it advertised so it is clearly not something that is done a lot.
Question 4: If you were in this situation, would this product be something that you were interested in?
All of the participants said that they would be interested in something like this, were they in this situation. A few of them said that they would be interested in using this type of product for something other than an announcement box, such as a birthday box or a graduation box. All excellent suggestions!
Question 1: What do you see on the homepage? What stands out to you? Is there anything you don't understand?
The participants mostly commented on how there should be better navigation- because they were not aware of the scroll feature. The user that was able to scroll said that the heading Shop Collection should come before What’s New. And another user said that there should be a teaser for the new product above the fold so that the user would see it right when they landed.
Question 2: When choosing your items for the box, did everything go as expected? Is there anything that you would change about this process?
All participants said that it was easy to select and discard items. One participant noted that there was a lot of scrolling involved and suggested that there might be a ‘next’ button toward the top of the screen. Another participant said that they would like to see drop downs for personalization that come from within each item’s box.
Question 5: Is there anything you would change about the features you saw?
This question got the most responses because it was asked after the users had completely navigated the product. User 1 suggested that you could make an extra small box that only contains one item, and also let them add on single items. User two was expecting to see a shopping cart in the top right corner, so they were thrown off during the box selection. User 3 was focused on the top main navigation and making that more usable, and User 4 suggested using a feature pod that teases pregnancy announcement boxes on the homepage. This user also said that there may be other opportunities to promote these and other featured products on the site, marketed to customers of other products.
Iterations
Based on the feedback from the participants there are a few things that I would want to change in my design.
I was thinking about having a pop up sign before check out asking: Where do you want this box shipped? Choices: Ship box to me, or Ship to recipient. If the user clicks on ship to me, then I would have it be added to a shopping cart in the corner. If they choose ship to recipient, then I would take them through the check out.
For the home screen I would create some content above the fold that carries over beneath, so that it is obvious that there is more beneath the fold.
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Other things I would consider doing if I had a larger scope would be to add a spot for a customized note for the recipient during checkout, and add more drop down menus for personalization inside the item preview boxes (for example different variants for different boxes).
Final High Fidelity Prototype
Conclusion
By incorporating this product into her already impressive site, I am hoping to increase her sites clientele by expanding to a new audience. When the box is presented and opened, it is with the hope that the person giving this box will be recording the recipients reaction. They later upload this moment on social media with Lilac and Lucy as a hashtag, generating more awareness to the brand- essentially free advertising.
With a sentimental song that starts playing as soon as the box is opened, I am hoping to really expand on the already present emotion that comes with learning a loved one is expecting. If we could advertise a video like this on Facebook, Tik Tok or Pinterest, we can use the emotional tone to create brand awareness, which translates to capturing and retaining clientele.