BLACK PLUM SCARVES
Richer storytelling. An ecommerce update.
Looking at how to bring some of the boutique experience into the ecommerce website.
My Role
UX/UI Designer
My Output
Research
UI design
Icon design
Illustrations
CHALLENGE
How does it fit into my life?
Response to the products were positive and enthusiastic. But people felt like this was a really nice thing that they didn’t know what to do with. There wasn’t an immediate connection with the overall concept of the heavy machinery motifs. And no existing narratives emerged to accommodate the product.
Black Plum booth at Hester Street Fair
RESEARCH
Interviews with boutique owners/buyers and consumers.
I visited boutiques in Manhattan and Brooklyn that carry scarves and other products with a design emphasis and asked about how Black Plum products might work with what they already sold and appeal to their customers. I set up a booth at flea markets and engaged with consumers to learn what they thought of the products and how they would use them.
SYNTHESIS
1.
Products are appealing and intriguing.
2.
Consumers and Boutique owners don’t have enough knowledge to make purchase.
Story not clear or effective enough to reassure consumers/buyers.
3.
Product is an anomoly.
Consumers/buyers don’t know how to place product into existing social or use patterns.
SOLUTION
Exploration with support
Opportunities to dive into the details of how the products are imagined and constructed allow the user to make discovories and connections, putting the products in a historical and cultural context.
Opportunities to buy are equally available in every part of the experience.
Guidance, support, and reassurance all play a significant role as soon as a product is selected and a user begins to consider a purchase. Popups provide quick doses of detailed and relevant information while further developing context. A strong sense of continuity and aid is reinforced in the purchase confirmation email (and subsequent emails) by supplying abbreviated care and use guidelines and a direct link to the returns policy.
Our Process
The story of how the product came to life, both in a physical sense — the craftsmanship and materials and the history that go into the products — and in a conceptual sense — what ideas and discussions are behind the designs that appear on the scarves.
Use and Care
Washing suggestions, notes on durability, and ideas for alternative ways a silk scarf can be put to work.
Putting it on
Features inspiring ways to wrap, tie, and drape the scarves as well as hightlighting who has worn the scarves from the distant to the recent past in all parts of the world.
WIREFRAMES
Decision-time support
Compact and handy notes that are more contextual than a standard product descriptions can be called up from links just below the buy button.
Wireframe: Product detail screen
Wireframe: Our Process overlay
Wireframe: Care and Use overlay
