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VILEDGE

︎ Overview

︎ Challenge

“Where you spend your dollar matters. Every dollar you spend with a small business goes back into the Black community, creating a thriving village of Black creators and makers.”

This mantra of Viledge guided the philosophy behind where the empathy for the users can be found. Viledge’s challenge was to make it fun and easy to discover black owned businesses by aggregating the best products through theme-based experience boxes.

The UX challenge was to use the UX Design process to develop a solution for the “path to purchase” that reflects the needs of the consumer who will use the system, the business goals, and aligns with the direction for “experience boxes.”

︎ The Approach

︎ User Research

Discovery & Interviews

The first obvious step was uncovering what motivates customers to purchase products. What information value driven shoppers want to see from a brand and/or what sells the value of subscribing to the experience boxes?

Once a research discussion guide aimed at understanding users’ motives, behaviors, and experiences with engaging with a brand was created, a total of (14) user interviews were conducted. These interviews were with consumers that support social justice and are motivated to purchase products from Black-owned brands.

Key Takeaways

These interviews provided insight on how users engage with brands and their network after receiving a product. Viledge’s target users are those who seek out meaningful experiences and showcase their values with their purchases. They understand that activism takes many forms and are motivated to buy black as a form of pride and economic protest.

︎ Persona & Journey Map

These key insights from user interviews and usability testing, brought us to discover a persona through empathy with the user and prioritize next steps according to their needs. The preferences, needs, goals and frustrations of the persona reflects the interviewees lifestyle, relatable to the end user.

This Journey Map visualizes Lusana’s prior experience with subscription box services. It accents areas of opportunity and highlights focus on consideration, research, and purchase phases.

In user research and interviews, users consistently brought up their desire to feel connected and aligned with brands in their values. They are conscious consumers who want to know about the business founders and makers.

Viledge - Journey Map

Problem Statement

People want to shop small black-owned business and support the black community. Lusana, a conscious consumer who is considering purchasing an experience kit from Viledge, needs to feel connected to the brand and know the product will be something she will enjoy because receiving products that aren’t useful is a waste of time and money.

How might we help Lusana sign up for Viledge knowing that she is supporting small black-owned businesses while receiving high quality products and resources that she will find useful?

︎ Design Solution

A priority matrix was created for guiding Design Studio. The following features were addressed with solutions based on prioritization backed by our users feedback and the personas (Lusana’s) needs and pain points:

Lo-Fidelity Design Sketches

Design Iteration occured to create data-backed designs for the Homepage, as well as the Our Story, How it Works, and Member Access Pages. Paper sketches and an InVision prototype was used for a round of usability testing with five people.

The ideation in this sketching design phase brought the convergence of user and business goals. The intersecting goal was to purchase the boxes which was prioritized on the site hierarchy. An easy buy-in process for the user brought to fruition by providing the information that they need to feel connected to the brands.

Incorporating visual imagery, owner stories, and clear call-to-actions were a must in order to create a sense of engagement, of empathy, & in giving users clear path to purchase. This allowed translation of Viledge’s identity in the design.

Usability Testing Takeaways

︎ 'My Account' page - Users assumed it was a profile, preferences, and settings page. It was changed to ‘Member Access’ for Mid-Fi.

︎ Users were first drawn to the 'Our Story' page, this supported orginal research that users wanted to align to values of brand.

︎ Prototype & Testing

Mid-Fidelity Prototype

Helping to define design, Lo-Fi sketches brought shape and sight to the features our Users have shown they desire from this site. Out of data-backed function choices came form in this Mid-Fi Protoype showcasing streamlined updates.

The general structure of the website was tested with ease, and adjustments were able to be made such as providing more context through copy and images.

From here, users were able to sucessfully complete all of the usability tasks set before them in testing.

Testing

This Mid-Fi protoype testing helped show how to motivate customers to purchase on the website. The post-purchase unboxing experience being addressed on the site encourages customers to actively engage with Viledge during the unboxing process with the goal of promoting black-owned brands. Further research on how we can bring this traditionally offline experience back online can strengthen the ability for Viledge members to connect and support black-owned brands.

The mid-fidelity design and prototype was tested among six users. Participants were given three scenarios and tasks to complete during usability testing.

Key Takeaways

Users found the primary navigation clear and the site overall easy to use.
Users were able to: locate details of the current months box, complete the task of joining Viledge and locate the member exclusive experience and content.
“If I stumbled on this site, I would quickly want to become a member”.

Hi-Fidelity Mockup

Reflection

Viledge markets to educated, Black conscientious consumers who are the tastemakers of their crew, seek out meaningful experiences, and showcase their values with what they buy. They understand that activism takes many forms, and many are motivated to buy Black as a form of pride and economic protest. This user has a large word-of-mouth network and loves to discover new products and share with their network both in-person and on social platforms.

As a UX Designer, we seek out the truth in experiences. This truth can come in many different forms, but what should always stay the same is every experience should be a meaningful one, whatever the reason. As companies and organizations like Viledge look to appeal to value-driven shoppers, these meaningful experiences are a key factor in finding the path towards understanding the empathy with our user.

The user is at the center of this entire project. From the imagery and focus on mission on the homepage, to every streamlined and easy to find touchpoint to not only provide infromation easily to the user, but also quickly. In a world changing and evolving quicker than ever so is the user’s attention. Awareness, joy, and value-driven are what come to mind when one would look at this design.

I am proud of this project, of this opportunity, and of this organization that does so much to amplify Black-owned brands. While the site and business model is currently in development, please keep an eye out for what Viledge has in store in 2021!

︎︎︎ VILEDGE