Work > The Bow Tie Shop
The Project
How might we incorporate a brand’s social mission into their e-commerce experience?
Knotty Tie is a tie retailer in Denver, CO, that makes unique & custom eco-friendly bow-ties and also employs refugees in doing so. Stakeholders thought that Knotty Tie’s social mission and unique product attributes were not readily apparent in their digital experience and believed that if customers understood their mission that additional value would be added to their products.
After validating stakeholder assumptions (yes, knowing the social mission did add value to their products), we redesigned key pages within the experience (homepage & product) and wove in more of Knotty Tie’s story through emotional design, imagery, and content architecture.
Knotty Tie Employees
TOOLS
Prototyping - Invision
Wireframing & Personas - Sketch
TEAM
Alexandria Williams (Me) - UX Designer & Researcher
Anna Borg - UI/UX Designer & Researcher
Validating Assumptions
Current State Usability Test
To validate stakeholder assumptions, we did an in-person benchmark usability test 5 customers to assess the following:
How easy is it to identify the full range of goods and services sold?
How apparent is the social mission on the home page?
Did the social mission add value to the product and what, if any effect, might that have on the purchasing decision?
How easy is it to navigate and find products?
CONSUMER HABITS SURVEY
We also sent out a survey to 32 people to further identify purchasing drivers, behaviors, and an initial assessment of the Knotty Ties website for first-time users.
LEARNINGS
Data from the Benchmark Usability Study, Consumer Habits Survey, and Facebook Analytics were pooled together to into an affinity map to identify themes.
WHAT WAS WORKING
Images, all users loved the imagery used throughout the site.
Brand Perception, users identified the brand as being “cool” & “clean” (everything a bow-tie company should be)
What didn’t work
Excessive scrolling on the home page
Too much text throughout the experience
Inability to identify other products besides bow ties (i.e. scarves, which when not apparent alienated potential female shoppers)
BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY: the social mission
85% of users said they would be tempted to purchase if they knew about the social mission but the majority of users were unable to identify it on the Knotty Tie website.
““I initially had no idea they had a social mission, I was just looking at ties. But that’s really cool! It should be front and center!” ”
Persona Development
CREATING PERSONAS FROM QUALITATIVE & QUANTITATIVE DATA
Two personas were created from the data gathered from testing and the survey, as well as, web analytics from the Knotty Tie Facebook Account. Our learnings identified that women are the primary customers (often purchasing ties for their significant others). In addition, demographic data identified a large customer base in New York, that represented a high-end buyer who was educated and altruistic. These personas were utilized to create browsing & shopping workflows that met the needs of Knotty Tie’s primary shoppers.
DESIGNING
FOCUSING ON THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE (SPOILER: SOCIAL MISSION)
Since our primary objective was to incorporate Knotty Tie’s social mission into their e-commerce experience, we created multiple iterations of the home page—user’s first encounter with the brand. In addition, we identified category and product pages as additional opportunities to make usability enhancements and weave in the brand story.
ENHANCING THE BROWSING EXPERIENCE
Knotty Tie had 400+ products on their site, but only 4 categories of products—bowties, ties, scarves, and pocket squares. The 400+ quantity came from all the derivatives of patterns of these categories. The existing experience only had a few filters to refine product results, forcing users to paginate till Jesus came back. I went through all the products, grouping and categorizing them, to create better filters and make navigation less arduous.
VALIDATING & Refining DESIGNS
A/B TESTING
Given the importance of the homepage, we came-up with three variations that we felt strongly about and did A/B testing with users. We learned the majority of users preferred homepages A & C, and responded particularly well to to the use of imagery as the primary means of content. In addition, users were able to identify the social mission quickly & clearly.
Balancing Business Objectives
We presented the homepage layouts, as well as, results from A/B Testing to stakeholders. They were pleased the social mission had been elevated, however, they also wanted to ensure users were able to identify that they also make custom ties (their bread & butter). So we decided to refine home page A and incorporate custom products in addition to the pre-made products. In addition, we provided additional copy to the images.
END RESULT
Knotty Tie’s social mission was woven throughout the e-commerce experience, from home page to product pages
The brand’s full product range was easily identifiable from the homepage as well as the main navigation
Updated and enhanced filters enabled users to refine product results in a more efficient manner
Final Thoughts
We had the privilege of visiting Knotty Tie & interviewing their co-founders in the early stages of the project. Being able to witness first-hand the life-cycle of each tie and hear the founder’s social mission was crucial. We were able share their story in our designs more effectively.
In addition, in order to represent the brand story, we were challenged to think how might we engage users beyond normative UI patterns. In turn, designing was all the more rewarding when we were able to elevate the brand story, satisfying stakeholder needs and also promote a worthy cause.