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.
Knotty Tie Employees
The Problem
Stakeholders believed that Knotty Tie’s social mission and unique product attributes were not readily apparent in their digital experience. They believed that if their customer did know about the full story behind their products, it would add value.
Solution
After validating stakeholder assumptions (yes, knowing the social mission did add value to the 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.
Tools
Prototyping: InVision
Mockups: Sketch
Survey: Google Forms
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 shopping drivers, behaviors, and initial assessment of the Knotty Ties website for first-time users.
WHAT WE LEARNED
What Worked
Images, shoppers enjoyed the pictures throughout the experience
Brand, common identifiers for the brand were “cool” & “clean”
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 PAIN POINT
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!”
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 enabled us to share their story in our designs more effectively.
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 a promoting a worthy cause.
