Hédonist is a Toronto based retail store focused on promoting the art of French living in an international space. Savoir-faire and the traditional French craftsmanship are two of the main gifts that they want to share to Toronto.
Research
Determining our target customers
The Hédonist team told us that their target customers are people between the ages of 35–55. These are people who live in the city and people who enjoy traveling and exploring other cultures. However, after I explored Facebook Audience Insights, I discovered that another powerful target demographic are people between the ages of 25–34 years old. I found this information by looking for North American brands that were similarly priced as the product catalogue that our client had. With a third of Canadian women shopping similar items, we pitched the idea of targeting single millennials as well.
Interviews
We conducted an 26 online surveys and 4 phone interviews. We asked questions like:
- Where do you shop for clothes?
- What do you look for/consider before making a purchase?
- Do you prefer to shop for clothes online or in-store? Why?
- What are your thought on French made products?
Our interviewees expressed that they relied on both online and offline shopping methods. Convenience is the main reason for shopping online however shopping offline is great for moments when a customer has to feel the fabric first.
As for French made products, our interviewees had similar thoughts on feelings of what French made products are all about. They associated “French made” with high quality, haute couture, and effortlessly beautiful. Their opinions on French culture however differed. Those who have never been to France viewed French culture was romantic, chic, and snobby. Meanwhile, those who have visited France saw French culture as one who is albeit effortlessly stylish, but is also community focused and one that valued social connections.
Overall, while shopping habits are similar across the board, our research participants differed on their views on French culture.
Personas & User Stories
We created 2 personas — one representing single, young professionals and another representing young parents. While their pain points were similar when it came to finding high quality products, their motivations differed.
Customers like Justin value the unique style of the items he wants to invest in. With Toronto fashion looking very similar, he looks forward to finding long lasting items that no one else can have. Meanwhile, customers like Maria are busy. Balancing motherhood, marriage, and a job is challenging. Although her shopping was once a hobby during her single days, she finds herself online shopping nowadays to avoid busy malls, crowded spaces, and to avoid tantrums or shopping accidents with her kids.
Competitive Analysis
We reviewed other stores similar to the mission and vision of Hedonist. While Hedonist is unique in covering the French lifestyle brand, similar companies have similar product catalogues. Some are listed below.
Planning
Problem and Proposed Solution
How might we enable online customers to see the quality of our French made products despite not seeing the products physically? We created a feature prioritization chart to come up with potential solutions and make decisions on what was feasible to implement within our time constraints.
Customer Journey
As designers, we had to balance the needs of the business with the needs of customers. While customers were our first priority, we had to be realistic with what we could offer through the Hedonist store. To determine this, I created customer journey maps to better understand and empathize with the customers’ needs but also to imagine what the store needs to offer.
Design
Low fidelity wireframes and Mid-Fidelity wireframes
Crazy Eights and lo-fis became our main focus. My project partner and I drew 8 ideas in 8 minutes to brainstorm different ways we can sell the quality and value of French lifestyle goods. Our ideas diverged but we notice that we had similarities in our brainstorming. From here, we took our crazy eights ideas and I created lo-fis to mix and match the carious designs we agreed upon.
We moved to mid-fis. Typically, I conduct user tests with mid-fis however, we decided to do it with the high fidelity designs instead. Our website heavily relies on color and photography to add to the shopping experience. I conducted 2 functional user tests to ensure that the flow made sense and transferred the mid-fis for hi-fis.
Testing
With hi-fi-s complete, we moved onto testing. We tested a total of 5 participants, all fitting within our target demographics.
Test Results and Iterations
We gave our participants a total of 4 tasks. We testing to check for overall impression of the site, the navigation, how products are assessed, and brand storytelling.
The last two tests offered the most insight. The 3rd task revealed how our users shop. We were informed about the visual cues that customers looked for when assessing the quality and style of the product. We discovered that photos were not enough. Videos of the items worn by models were a common response by our test participants. They wanted to see how the fabric falls on the body and how it moves during movement.
Then, the fourth task. The goal of this task is to see if the brand story is easy to understand. Because the store relies on their French values, we had to ensure that their story was told effectively without the cliches of red, blue, stripes, and baguette photos. Overall, we found that copy was the main drive of sharing this aspect of the brand. However, I’m curious if there are other ways we can showcase the French values of the brand.
The final prototype
The feedback we received from our high fidelity testing provided small insights on which problem we needed to solve for in the future. We needed to address the visual cues required to support online shopping. This problem, however, were relatively small compared to the main scope of this problem which was to design a website. We were constrained with only 3 weeks for the project so we decided to end our design sprint here.
With confidence, we shared our design with our client. Try our design here.
Future Steps
We had constraints in this 3 week sprint and although we were successful this time around, many considerations and questions came up.
- How can we visually communicate the French quality of our brand without coming off as a cliche? Our current design relied heavily on copy but is there a different way to suggest the French characteristics of our brand.
- Can we explore how we can merge the in-store experience and the online experience for our shoppers? Viewing the business from a service design lens may lend new ways we can leverage our two selling touch points.
This project was a success from our client’s perspective. We brought insights on customer’s mindset, goals, and pain points. We also paved the way for the visual identity that the brand can embody.
