LOLO & ARTIE
Lolo & Artie is an online concept store that showcases modern handmade clothing, decor and accessories made by Canadian maker mamas for toddlers and babies. The design process for the branding, product offering and concept of the shop included market, user and supplier research. This highlighted multiple user segments that could be served by the business, it's website, a local pop-up presence and social media profile.
Started by a maker mama on her maternity leave, Lolo & Artie aims to meet the needs of other makers in Canada while providing affordable, modern, high-quality products to new moms and guidance to those who want to buy something special for them and their children.
MARKET RESEARCH
Trend analysis was one of the most important steps in affirming the assumption that Lolo & Artie was a viable business opportunity. After identifying a gap in the market for high quality, handmade and easy to access modern products for babies and mothers I launched into extensive market research and analysis in order to test the assumption. This single slide highlights the main points that validated the business opportunity and initiated the move forward to building the business, reaching out to suppliers and designing the site.
PERSONAS
While designing the Lolo & Artie business and experience I was fortunate to be immersed in a community rich with users to learn from. I was a new mother and took part in a number of activities that led to conversation about the experience of shopping for infants and children and the thought process around choosing products that reflect personal values. As part of the process three personas emerged and were used to guide and inform the experience, product development and marketing strategies.
USER JOURNEYS
Understanding the flow and journey of each of our personas was an important aspect of both the business and site design processes. Integrating a presence in real life - the local market strategy - to support the e-commerce and social marketing strategies was only possible because the journeys were built out with touch points and then tested against transactions data when the business was up and running.
SITE DESIGN
Designing the site was based around the use of Shopify as the ecommerce provider. In order to get moving as quickly as possible the Clean Themes template Canopy was used to build the site. It's clean and modern look and clear navigation were in line with the aesthetic and experience chosen for Lolo & Artie. Wireframes were built in line with the theme in order to further clarify user experience, site navigation and collection and product page experiences.
USER RESEARCH
After nine months of operations I decided to engage in user research to better understand the Lolo & Artie customer base. Using instagram and facebook I surveyed social media followers, past customers and subscribers to the Lolo & Artie marketing list. The insights gleaned from the research and those from business performance insights translated in to the site and business pivot and redesign outlined below.
DESIGN PIVOT & SITE REDESIGN
Building on user and transactional insights not only made the site and product better from a customer experience perspective but it also transformed the product offering. Based on the research I pared the Lolo & Artie product offering back siginificantly, offering only the products designed and made under the Lolo & Artie brand. Those products were rebranded as Birch, Beads, Blankets and Bibs and the site was redesigned to reflect the changes. This made navigation much more clear and simple and eliminated a tier of site architecture and thereby a barrier between the main page and the product level.
