The Distillery District Dilemma
Context: RED Academy’s UX Design Professional Program
Possible Client: The Distillery District - #TheDD
Objective: To build a web-based tool to supplement sales, increase the interest in shopping local, and boost community engagement
Time Frame: Two weeks | Team: Kiersten Mosley, Patrick Weberman & myself
Research
Toronto’s downtown Distillery District is a 13 acre commercial and residential area filled with numerous cafés, restaurants, and shops. It’s a large collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture filled with more than 40 buildings including the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. I had only been there twice for the Toronto Christmas Market. It was a fun experience and I was excited to dive deeper to identify problematic areas of interest and what possible solutions could exist for this area.
My team and I began our research by visiting the current DD website and first impressions were surprising. It was a meager representation of one of Toronto’s supposed downtown hot spots. Comprised of a logo-directory linking to individual outbound websites, a sad pinboard of minimal lack lustre events and a perplexing navigational system, thedistillerydistrict.com clearly exhibited a deficit in the digital landscape.
We visited the district one afternoon, conducted interviews with merchants and visitors and gained the following insights:
- The gallery owners and shopping retailers were dissatisfied with the district owner, the window shoppers, the tourists and their sales
- The consumable (food and drink) merchants were doing well and had minimal complaints
- Most of the businesses were NOT interested in a communal e-commerce platform and came across rather individualistic
- Visitors enjoyed the physical experience of being at the distillery district; loving the architecture, the vibe, the cultural/historical aspects and the events
This led us to start researching some direct and indirect domains:
We conducted surveys asking questions like:
Why do you go to the Distillery District?
and How often do you go?
Out of the 100 people surveyed, 77% hadn’t even visited the Distillery District’s website. What was the reason to? Major complaints sounded like,
“It’s usually dead or at times too busy,” “The shops are too expensive,” or “Navigation and parking is terrible.”
The district’s social media avenues were not only visually incongruent, they were aimless and insignificant. Branding was just a disaster with inconsistencies found everywhere you looked. The Distillery District map on the website didn’t even match the map at the physical location!
The Game Plan
This led us to conclude that the Distillery District had and still has a major identity crisis. We did realize however that the people who love the DD go there for events, food, drink and the vibe, not really to shop for items, especially online. We needed to create a uniform brand, a buzz around the district and a platform to encourage users to visit the place and have a memorable experience.
IBIS World states that the trade show and event industry is a BILLION dollar industry with an annual growth of 1.4% — we decided it was time for the DD to start monetizing on that statistic.
Enter Gabe:
A single, professional, beer enthusiast working and living in downtown Toronto. Gabe loves the culture and diversity of the city, although he is originally from Venezuela. His friends from back home are coming down for the week and he promised to show them a good time on the town. Gabe loves craft beer and remembers eating some amazing Mexican food at the Distillery District, where he used to reside. It’s Friday afternoon, he just finished work and his friends are expecting an awesome night. He visits the Distillery District website to find the restaurant he remembers and to see if anything is going on; unfortunately Gabe has a very poor experience. His pain points led us to create a new event-based website with these core features:
- An inviting and detailed directory and a dedicated page for each of the DD merchants
- Clickable event listings, each with a comprehensive event page and the ability to purchase tickets
- The ability to create an account, log in and favourite events
- Recommendations based on interests and favourited/purchased events
- Email acquisition for newsletters and promotional offers
Design
We started out with whiteboard sketches, Keirsten then drew paper prototypes and I quickly constructed the mid-fidelity wireframes:
When it came down to the event ticket purchase checkout flow, we researched the processes of Eventbrite and Meetup and Patrick expedited those mid-fidelity screens.
DD Prototype:
Usability Testing
Users found the site simple, informational and easy to use. However there were issues around the inability to log out, button placement and the lack of a search function. I suggest in order to increase functionality, a link to the district map, a printable pdf map, and ticketing information should be added in the footer. Another consideration is to include a dedicated events page, the ability to leave reviews and have a rating system for user input and reference.
Immediate Considerations
- I recommend the district hire a corporate event planning team with the ability to build relationships with other companies and offer sponsorships for events. It would be beneficial to implement a request form to host an event on the new website as well as sponsorship information.
- The team should also work together with merchants to create district cohesion and an added marketing initiative for those hosting an event.
- Based on survey answers, events that people would attend at the DD include: music or food events, wine-beer-liquor tastings, theatre, cultural or holiday events, various festivals and performances, markets, art-related events and more. It would also be great to create workshops to add more value to attendees and foster community engagement.
Future Recommendations
The district definately needs to find solutions to parking and navigation. Online and physical maps must be readily available and signage prominent.
Paid VIP Memberships — these memberships can include valet parking, discounted tickets, line by-pass, first choice seats and other promotions.
Strategic Deviations
Getting rid of expensive galleries and retail shops & rebranding it as a cultural historic piazza where you can experience the best entertainment, food, art, music and drink.
