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STILL

Shopping Experience Design

User ResearchContent Design • Voice & Tone

STILL Banner

—What I Did

User research

Content strategy

Content design

Wireframing

Prototyping

—Tools

Figma

Airtable

Notion

Google Suite

—Team

Solo content designer

—Timeline

March 2022 – June 2022

STILL is an online shop offering affordable, minimalist athleisure that promotes mental health awareness. I created STILL for my capstone project at the UX Writing Academy certification program.

 

Challenge

Develop a new e-commerce site with clear information hierarchy and UI copy that keeps its target audience in mind.

Solution

Research, strategize, and design using a content-first approach.

My Role

Owning the process, I researched target users and crafted a distinct brand voice. I then wrote and designed a unique shopping experience that makes a positive social impact.

Research

GOALS AND METHODS

Connecting mental health to athleisure

As a mental health advocate and a big fan of oversized hoodies, I envisioned a lifestyle brand that would feel good on customers and do good for the community. I set out to:

  • Gain insight into the current market landscape of mental health-inspired clothing

  • Get to know our target users. What are their interests, preferences, motivations, and fears?

  • Learn what customers deem as deciding factors when making a purchase

  • Understand how to relate STILL clothing symbolism idea to customers

I analyzed how 8 direct and indirect competitors made use of brand voice, product copy, and website design patterns.

STILL Competitor Analysis

 

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Synthesizing the main findings

  • To present a cohesive brand, all web elements must tell the same story. It’s important to establish a unique brand voice and mission throughout our product messaging.
     

  • Out of 170 survey responses, over 70% of online shoppers look for affordability, aesthetic style, and a good fit in athleisure. Customers also rely on sales/promotions and free/cheap shipping as deciding factors before purchasing. Let’s anticipate these user desires by writing concise UI copy that customers can scan “at a glance.”
     

  • Users get frustrated by manipulative marketing and spam-heavy loyalty programs. First impressions are crucial, so our loyalty program must emphasize the benefits to customers—all without distracting them from their primary flow.

STILL banner

Content Strategy

Identifying our target customer

To write with empathy, I leaned on my research to define the niche audience. STILL would appeal to a young-adult female who has a comfy-casual sense of style and likes finding a good deal online.

USER PERSONA

STILL user persona

Meet Christine—our target user. She’s an early career professional who likes browsing online for clothes.
Her go-to outfit is comfy, yet tasteful athleisure that she can wear anywhere and feel good in.

Defining the brand voice

Next, I crafted a mini content style guide to align all UI copy. To enhance customer trust, it’s important that STILL emphasizes a calm, supportive, and sincere brand voice. Our copy must be concise and encouraging to share about our quality clothing, affordability, and positive messaging.

CONTENT STYLE GUIDE

STILL Brand Voice

Prioritizing the essential content

To design a purposeful user experience, we needed to prevent feature creep. The key was to ensure customers could navigate seamlessly throughout our online shop. I categorized potential website features into four tiers of importance and determined the primary must-haves.

CARD SORTING

STILL Card Sorting

Home page > Shop > Product page > Shopping bag > Checkout flow > Confirmation

Walking in the customer's shoes

For each digital touchpoint, I documented the hypothesized emotions and goals of a new customer. I noted opportunities where a content-first design approach could create a smooth user experience and proactively prevent user frustration.

USER JOURNEY

STILL User Journey

Primary User Journey — New customer makes a purchase at STILL.

Results

Spreading the goodness

I had such a fulfilling experience designing and prototyping the primary flow. As an online shop focused on increasing mental health awareness, STILL's website:

  1. Adheres to the brand's calm, supportive, and sincere voice

  2. Communicates affordability and comfort at a glance

  3. Highlights customer benefits of joining the loyalty program

CONTENT DESIGN

 

ESTABLISHING BRAND CREDIBILITY WITH VOICE AND TONE

Content testing found that users had positive feelings towards power words that leaned into our calm, supportive, and sincere voice guidelines. Speaking with this consistent voice built user trust in our mental health advocacy.

Display of STILL's top clothing picks. Header: Top picks you'll love. Subheader: Cozy vibes, all day every day.

To relate to our young-adult female target audience who want to feel good in what they wear, I leaned on power words that adhered to our calm and supportive voice.

STILL About the Brand section. Header: Look good, feel good. Body: Conversation starter, quality comfort, sustainable clothing. CTA: Learn more.

By adhering to our sincere voice, the About section increases trust in the quality that customers can expect from our products.

STILL Confirmation Page

Confirmation pages are a great place to infuse some brand personality while sharing in a customer’s feelings of anticipation for their order. Here, we speak with the same consistent voice, but our tone shifts to mood-match how customers feel along the checkout flow.

 

ADDRESSING USER DESIRES WITH CONCISE COPY

While introducing our member loyalty program, I wrote scannable microcopy that led with the benefits for customers.

STILL Shopping Bag.png

Effective microcopy adds value for its users without distracting them from achieving their primary goal. Here, we keep our pop-ups concise, all while seamlessly guiding customers toward checkout.

STILL Checkout Options

The checkout options screen shares quick member benefits without confirmshaming. Even if customers aren’t interested now, they’ll proceed to guest checkout with a positive perception of the brand and may consider future membership.

CONTENT DESIGN

Outcomes

Positive feedback! During usability testing, all 10 athleisure enthusiasts completed the checkout flow without cart abandonment and strongly agreed that they "would shop again at STILL." The consistent brand voice gained user trust.

Being intentional with content design ensures that we foster a strong and lasting customer-brand relationship
 

Want to take your project to the next level?
Let me boost your user retention with a memorable consumer experience.
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© 2024 Jolene Mai

Photos by H&M

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