Work > The Bow Tie Shop
The Bow Tie Shop
Knotty Tie is a tie retailer in Denver, CO, that not only makes unique & custom eco-friendly bow-ties but also employees refugees to do so.
The Problem
However, stakeholders believed that their social mission and unique product attributes were not readily apparent in their digital experience. Believing that if their customer did know about the full story behind their products, it would add value.
Solution
After validating stakeholder assumptions, 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.
Team
Me: UX Designer & Researcher ; Anna Borg: UI/UX Designer & Researcher
Validating Assumptions
Current State Usability Test
To validate stakeholder assumptions, we did a benchmark usability test with 5 in-person 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 product?
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 Issue
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 & interview their co-founders in the early stages of the project were integral to our designs. Being able to see the full life-cycle of each tie and hear more about how this small company has grown was crucial to implementing design solution that told their story effectively.
Going beyond base usability, in order to represent the brand story we had to think of how to engage the user beyond normative UI patterns. In turn, designing was all the more challenging and subsequently fulfilling when users & stakeholders responded enthusiastically to our solutions.