Defining a brand and its customer.

Brand Goals:
To change consumers perception of shopping.

To educate consumers to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle through mindful shopping that will, in turn, help care for our health and earth.

To build a community of women with safe & fair working wage jobs.
What I Did:
Conducted user research to discover who the customer was.

Strategized how to best meet user needs.

Designed wireframes & prototype to be implemented for online e-commerce and an eco-educational site.
mockup by raw pixel

Defining the Customer

Survey:
I conducted a survey to get a broader answer from people about their opinions on eco-shopping and being sustainable as a whole. I was able to get a wide selection of responses from mostly women.
Survey Insights:
- Our main user is a woman between the age of 25-35
- Cares about the quality and cost of a product
- Is interested in learning more about living an eco-lifestyle
- Is aware of her impact on the planet and wants to consume and waste less
- Wants to make the change but is unsure if she can afford to
View Survey Results
Affinity Map:
I synthesized my findings from the survey to find the main groups that would affirm my initial insights.
Empathy Map:
After grouping the data, I was able to categorize the emotions of who was shaping up to be my primary persona.
Primary Persona:
Overall, cost and accessibility were the biggest concerns for our customers.

My client was unsure if she should be marketing to people who are already living an eco-lifestyle or if she should try and convert people into changing their lifestyle.

From the survey, I think the primary customer is someone who is motivated to change.
Take a look at my persona, Sophia, someone who already has started changing her habits but is encouraged by more motivation to take charge.

Product Strategy

User Journeys:
Sophia’s main goals when shopping on our site will be to buy eco-friendly products and to learn more about how to live an eco-friendly lifestyle.

With these goals in mind, take a look at the journey maps I created to help get a better sense of Sophia’s flow and thought process when using the website.
Site Map:
From Sophia’s user journeys, it helped me map out the shopping and educational pages of the site.

Check out my site map below of the general layout for Dusted Gold.

🚨 August 2020 Update! 🚨

***When I took on this project, I made the mistake of designing wireframes and assuming I could implement them in Shopify.
What came next, after designing wireframes that did not match any of the Shopify templates (and a few days of questioning whether I wanted to take on liquid~), was figuring out two important objectives:
1. Meet clients needs - her vision for how the site looks while maintaining a reasonable cost.
2. Still consider customer needs and goals.

Interaction & Visual Design

Wireframes:
From my site map, I drafted mid-fidelity wireframes to work on the layout of the site.
High-Fidelity Prototype:
I had a touch base with my client after showing her those mid-fidelity wireframes. Some small tweaks here and there and a change of layout for the 'Lifestyle' page as well as an example of one of her articles was added as a result.
View Prototype
Visual Design:
Based on clients' desired visual colors and themes I created a color palette and style guide to enliven the site.
Style Guide:

Next Steps

Next Steps:
My client is working on building her content for her 'Lifestyle' page as well as starting to look into productions of some products. Currently helping her build her site on Shopify.

The goal is to be ready for launch by August 2020.