Tryffelsvinet

Define a new visual expression and a responsive website that would better convey Tryffelsvinets DNA
and help them increase revenue and attract new customers and members,
and to do so in 10 weeks.

Overview

Tryffelsvinet is a wine importer selling to the restaurants and to Systembolaget AB who has an alcohol monopoly on retail in Sweden. Tryffelsvinet primary goal is to distribute high quality and hard to find wines to true wine lovers and meeting the increasing demand for Fine Wines on the Swedish market. As a wine importer Tryffelsvinet have the advantage of strong creative and storytelling to drive sales but as shoppers give high value items more consideration, a clear, simple and reassuring checkout process is vital to conversion.

My role

Discovery, user research, prototypes, user testing, UI design, brand strategy, rebranding and brand illustration.

Approach

We created a list of ‘How Might We…’ questions to help us better align our user’s tasks and goals

Research

To start off with we researched the wine import industry in Sweden, we needed to understand our competitors and identify areas were we could distinguish ourselves and we analysed some of Tryffelsvinet’s competitors in the wine club and the wine import industry and uncovered strengths and weaknesses of their websites and brand identity. We reviewed the existing website along with examples of newsletters.  Reviewing these, together with users showed common pain points and allowed us to identify and prioritise areas of improvement. It was essential for us to go out in the field and interact with real customers. We spent a day in Stockholm business district talking with customers about their motivations, needs, and frustrations while shopping wine. 

User needs

• Affordability, quality and recommendations are the most important factors for choosing wine.

• Also limited editions, uniqueness, sustainability and social status.

By categorising research notes from the interviews we made an Empathy map to get a better understanding of the user’s mindset and a UserJourney helped us map out pain points on the existing website.

Pain points

• Many users do not complete their wine purchase because of minimal amount of 3-6 bottles and lose interest when they have to move between Tryffelsvinet’s and Systembolaget’s website to make their purchase.

• No inspiration, poorly structured material and outdated information.

• The existing website is slow and hard to navigate through

• The visual identity felt outdated and impractical

Target audience

Based on the research found in the discovery period of the project we could define our Target audience.

The primary audience, a trend aware 30-55 year old, who likes social contexts and actively seeks new experiences and events. Wants to be inspired and influence others.

The secondary audience is 55+ with a genuine interest in wine, but with varied knowledge of wine and various economic conditions.

Business objective

An impact map helped us map out solutions and define our business objective witch is to increase the amount of active members with 25% within 6 months after launch. These methods formed a great foundation to move into feature ideation and prioritisation.

Insights

The target audience can not identify with the brand. We need a good structure and organisation of the content on the site, automate and integrate the wine purchase to Systembolagets a shopping basket. We need to offer something new and modern, for example a digital wine experience. That would result in an increase of members and sales of wine packages.

TEST

From a designstudio workshop we came up with the idea of a digital wine tasting with a wine quiz and an interactive prototype was created in Invision. A wine quiz to offer knowledge to members is a good way for Tryffelsvinet to offer a modern and different wine tasting experience.

Findings

These tests revealed to us that the design decisions we took were leading us down the right path and where much of the prototype would be brought into the final designs. Some crucial feedback we received included different needs and desires depending on financial opportunities and knowledge about wine.

Recommendations

• Varied selection of wine packages

• Ability to make the wine quiz on one wine bottle at the time.

MVP

At this point we wanted to challenge ourself and make sure we found our minimum viable product (MVP) in the digital wine tasting . We did another workshop where we tried out some new ideas and sketched out Low-Fidelity wireframes. We looked into the idea of storytelling through AR, for example, using a mobile device to introduce characters or imagery to offer users visual touches and a different experience. Another idea was a digital wine cellar, where you could get help keeping track of your wines, get reminders, recommendations and add tasting notes. We also began the process of sketching variations of the product pages on the website. During this process, we thought about how the layout and content could be structured to satisfy user and business goals in a technically achievable way.  A group of designers critiqued each solution and voted for their favourites.

REBRANDING

After our initial research, followed by a series of workshops and user testing, I assumed the responsibility of branding and UI.

Tryffelsvinets new visual design language, is everything from fonts and colors to tonality and presentation of products. A clean layout is used to maintain a sophisticated presence and highlight the wine. Edgy typography balanced out by the soft colour palette gives it a modern yet sophisticated look. In my illustrations I wanted to convey the winemaker's craft and the art of the winemaking process and give it a touch of nostalgia. A modern, playful yet sophisticated look makes the brand stand out from its competitors as well as connecting to its prime audience.

An important part of the website design is to add advise, inspiration and a personal touch to the product information. With clear navigation and inspiring content the design is based on a fine balance between intuitive functional structure and inspirational design where the product images gives the target group a deeper product understanding.

​​Discoverability is an important component and we wanted to use design patterns that users immediately felt familiar with. Users who know what they are looking for should be able to find their page immediately, through search and/or sort and filtering. However, users who aren’t sure what they’re looking for need to be presented with inspiring tips and options. 

Goals from our research and testing showed us we could consider not only what the app should do, but also how it should feel. We believed this would be the difference between delivering a good experience and a great one. Thinking about emotional design early on helped us understand the importance of aesthetics and tone of voice to the experience. In the design of the digital wine tasting/quiz we used more colour, cutouts illustrations and animations.

Through careful analysis of our initial user testing, we identified behavioural variables to segment our user audience. These variables could be categorised into activities such as knowledge, skills such as confidence and motivations for doing the quiz.

Outcome

The outcome is a contextual commerce; a new community for people to exchange ideas, share thoughts, experience the stories, innovation and craft of winemaking.

Unlike traditional e-commerce sights, purchase opportunities are woven into stories and are seamlessly part of the customer world and experience. The visitor is led through an inspirational flow, all the way to purchase.

Illustrations which make up Tryffelsvinet’s stories, have a warm and soft coulour palette giving the visitor a friendly, modern and sophisticated experience. A platform designed for knowledge and stories that are rooted in heritage and inspired by modern social and cultural life.