Design Overview
Scope: Adding a fashion styling service tied into the Glossier website
User Personas: Michelle (created for this project)
Challenges: Michelle doesn’t feel like she is understood with other subscription models so there is an initial hurdle to adoption.
Goals: Add a new features/product subscription service to Glossier site. Improve signups and drive revenue with new subscription service model.
Assumptions: Initial discovery research has been completed and this is an identified need in the Glossier product. I’ll be focusing on the solution aspect.
Getting Started
To get off and running for this project, I started by brainstorming, researching other clothing subscription sites, and talked to friends who regularly use Glossier and online subscription services.
For the purpose of keeping this brief, I started by defining one main persona: Michelle (she/her) ((if this were real I’d talk to customers)). To get into the mindset of Michelle, I tried to define some of her characteristics and purchasing habits.
She’s always looking for the next, new product that Refinery29 has on their IG
She’s open-minded to new things and loves being ahead of the trends. Her favorite influencers are always sharing their latest picks from stores like Urban Outfitters or Free People
She considers herself a relatively frugal spender, but will splurge on something that’s more quality since she’s focused on sustainability
She shops on her phone and finds that if she doesn’t buy it when she sees it, she will forget about it. For bigger purchases where she needs to do her research, she’ll move to her laptop
She’s always on the go, she doesn't have a lot of time to hunt for what she needs/wants
Michelle 👋
Her biggest pain point is that she doesn’t feel like she’s understood with other subscription models so there’s an initial hurdle to adoption. She thinks she can do it better and doesn’t want to waste time or money.
Some initial ideas:
Since the majority of Michelle’s follow at least one influencer on social media, it would be advantageous to integrate Instagram influencers into the product/signup flow. i.e. “inspired by” or “picked by”
Clothing “inspired by” certain beauty products
Include a free product with each clothing box
Focus on building a layered approach to appearance i.e.: base: skincare, middle: makeup and top: clothing
Let Michelle pick her choices and only pay for what she keeps. Cut out the middle-peron who may or may not choose the best clothing for her.
Discount for bundling all of above
Incorporate a getting-to-know you style quiz that has become a mental model for most clothing subscription sites
Once I had some concepts, I interviewed some friends who matched the Michelle persona. Through this, I discovered that seeing clothes in real life scenarios really helped them make choices. I made sure the influencer/friend aspect was at the forefront of designs and decided to go with a combination of the above.
I thought the greatest impact and way to keep Michelle interested would be a curated, instagram influencer hand-picking some choices and from there, focusing on the layered approach with a get-to-know you style quiz. Beyond that, we need to give Michelle the option to pick her choices or add a stylist only if she needs to.
User flows
From here, I mocked up some flows that made sense with the goals mentioned above. I’d user-test these to ensure we’re making the right decisions for our customers. There were two primary flows: the do-it-yourselfer and the stylist route.
The do-it-yourselfer wasn’t shown as many of the styling questions and was left to make her own decisions as she sees fit. When she’s done with the quiz, she doesn’t see the stylist sections.
The pricing is the differentiator here as well. While it’s cheaper, she doesn’t get to keep the monthly fee so there is more incentive to choose the stylist option.
The two flows diverge at the plan selection. If you follow the prototype, you can either select the do-it-yourself option or the stylist option here and those will take you the two different directions.
Check it out! (if you click anywhere on the screen, you’ll see blue hotspots you can click to navigate)
Applying a new style
Glossier claims it’s, “a new approach to beauty. It’s about fun and freedom and being OK with yourself today. We make intuitive, uncomplicated products designed to live with you.” With this in mind, the style of the site needed to match a clean aesthetic but also allude to the fun and freedom of shopping there.
I picked colors that were fun and modern but a little funky. The font is also a testament to this feeling. I used their base font: Apercu Pro and accented it with a new, fresh font called Commuter Sans.
A goal of mine was also to ensure that the designs were accessible to all users. Making sure the color contrast ratios met WCAG standards on all components was considered throughout the design process. It would be important to componentize the pieces into a system to additionally ensure consistency and accessibility to everyone.
I designed a landing promotional page (click on image to download full size):
And a brand/influencer page where Michelle can research what Glossier Closet carries (click on image to download full size):
Next steps
Once a visual style was established, these screens would be optimized for responsive sizes, especially mobile. I’d then test the prototype with customers and further research flows and designs to gather qualitative feedback.
Forever keeping research at the forefront of this process; here are some of my thoughts on future A/B tests:
Where the payment flow would take place: either at the middle or end. If you ask for payment information too soon, it has the potential to deter the visitor from committing and could be perceived as pushy. Instead, ask for their shipping info first and get payment information last. Since they’ve already subtly “committed” to the purchase process/put in some effort, they’ll be more likely to finish the purchase process.
The organization of categories on the self-serve/stylist pages
The location of “Get started with this stylist” sticky footer
The organization of the different flows
The content on landing pages
An important thing to note would be that ideally I’d be working in-step with my team, including developers. I think it’s important everyone is involved from beginning to end so there is a team-wide understanding of what we’re building and why. AND to ensure that we weren’t designing something that would take 10 years to build 🙃. Once I felt confident with qualitative and A/B testing results, I’d work with a developer to build.
Thanks for reading!