Made for More is a is a curated global marketplace aligning conscious designer brands with cause partners. 11% of every purchase supports the brand’s cause. From my background helping startups grow, I was interested in not only building a website, but building a business. I was drawn to the altruistic and sustainable aspect Made for More was trying to incorporate in the e-commerce space.
Made for More needed to launch their MVP e-commerce store. They wanted the site and business to be functional and on brand in 2 weeks. The site needed to cater to all 3 stakeholders of their business: the designers who sold their products on the platform, the causes the contributions would go towards, and the consumers who would purchase the products.
We built a website and functioning business for Made for More on Shopify. We not only developed the site but consulted on the design direction and business strategy.
UX Designer
Content Strategist
Information Architect
Developer
CEO (client)
2 weeks
Research to understand and empathize with user needs and behavior
user research, competitor analysis
Brainstorm potential solutions to the pain points identified
Brainstorming, sketching, co-creation workshops
Design the interface to visualize the solution in various fidelities
Wireframes, Shopify site
Test the design and iterate based on findings
Usability testing, user interviews
The research to validate business proposition was done by the client before we stepped in. We learned that many consumers are eager to purchase unique, sustainable and glocal art from artists worldwide. There was also a heightened consciousness to purchasing sustainably either by purchasing items that are not mass produced, or by paying purchases forward by donating portions of your purchase to non-profits.
We looked at similar companies to see how their website was created, what kind of value propositions they highlighted, as well as the types of products they sold.
Brands we looked at through our research
As there was a short turnaround for this project, we began by discussing the scope and then prioritizing what was crucial to the MVP.
We researched themes on Shopify that matched the aesthetics and capabilities that Made for More required. Made for More came with wireframes that we discussed and revised taking UX best practices, time and development into account.
Initial wireframes for the Home Page and Designer Page
As we understood the items that needed to be on the site, we began to organize the information into the navigation. After some iteration and feedback, we set the navigation as the below for the MVP. Once the business starts to scale, we would have to create more detailed navigation to maintain intuitive hierarchy.
Navigation on the Shopify Site that we built
Once the components were in, we worked on reordering and revising the content so it was compelling for the user, sent a clear message, and was functional.
Shopify has a preset hierarchy of which headings we can customize. For the most part, we stuck within the Shopify constraints and created a style guide. For the Designer page that allowed for more flexibility in the typography, we created an alternate heading to be more on brand. The colors were taken from the logo, and we experimented with various hues and saturation as the colors looked different depending on the the type of display.
Excerpt of our Style Guide
We were thoughtful on how we wrote our CTAs. It had to be short, concise, and mobile optimized but also on brand. For example, through iterations with user feedback we changed how a card would display in a hover state in the home page (below).
Progression of how we updated the writing of a card
Another area we took time to refine was the content explaining Made for More on the About Us Page and Home Page. We wanted to created something concise and mobile ready, but also emotional and captivating.
Excerpt of the About Us page mentioning Made for More's offerings and values
As we understood the items that needed to be on the site, we began to organize the information into the navigation. After some iteration and feedback, we set the navigation as the below for the MVP. Once the business starts to scale, we would have to create more detailed navigation to maintain intuitive hierarchy.
Navigation on the Shopify Site that we built
We developed the wires into Shopify to create a functioning site. Understanding how all of the elements in Shopify were linked helped me understand how to create each page. We also used some plug-ins to incorporate reviews, editing the theme, and creating new pages not offered by the Shopify theme.
Through stakeholder feedback, we continued to improve the pages after launch.
Building a Shopify website not only meant creating the pages, but also integrating the shipping logistics, checkout, legal jargon, email marketing into the site. Figuring out what was necessary to create a functioning business and integrating that into the development of the site was a great reminder of how business and product intertwine.
We spent a lot of time figuring out how to get our vision and message across to the 3 stakeholders who would access our site. Figuring out wordings of CTAs, Home Page, and About Us page to be on brand and also encouraging users to be interested in our work was a great challenge