https://www.callablanche.com/real-brides
Role: UIUX Designer Tool: Pen & Paper, Figma Duration: 06/2024 – 07/2024
Calla Blanche is a fashion design company specializing in wedding dresses for brides. After conducting a competitive audit of their website, we identified opportunities to enhance its functionality and user experience. To achieve this, we proposed adding new features, including “Share Your Story,” “Real Brides,” and “Share Your Photos,” to create a more engaging and interactive platform for users.
Understanding the Challenge
The primary challenge was to design a feature that enhances customer interaction by enabling them to share their wedding stories. This approach not only provides customers a platform to share their experiences but also allows other users to explore our products in diverse and meaningful ways. Rather than immediately brainstorming solutions based on assumptions, I focused on gaining a deep understanding of the customers’ wedding experiences and their preferences for sharing them. By doing so, I aimed to ensure that the proposed concept would be both impactful and valuable to our users, even within the constraints of a limited timeframe.
Research and Analysis
Sharing wedding stories is highly subjective, as each customer has a unique story and gown style. To better understand these differences, I began by speaking with 15 customers from our list. During recruitment, I ensured a diverse mix of participants in terms of age and clothing preferences to achieve broader insights. When crafting the interview script, I kept the questions open-ended to encourage participants to share their wedding images and stories freely. Throughout this phase, maintaining an unbiased and open mindset was crucial for identifying key pain points and uncovering valuable insights.
Competitive Audit
Through competitive analysis, we discovered that competing wedding websites offered a ‘brides sharing’ section, which we lacked. To validate whether this feature was needed, we conducted customer interviews and refined the website design accordingly. We also introduced an ‘enter style number’ feature to streamline navigation and improve overall usability.
We noticed a high bounce rate on our product pages and observed through analytics that users were spending considerable time comparing dresses across multiple tabs. Customer support also reported frequent inquiries about ‘what other brides chose’ and requests for real wedding photos. This indicated that brides wanted social proof and inspiration from peers before making purchasing decisions.
Customer Interview Findings:
We conducted 15 in-depth interviews with recent brides and bride-to-be customers to validate the need for a brides sharing feature. Key insights included:
Social Proof is Critical:
Quote: “I need to see how it looks on real people at real weddings, not just styled photoshoots”
13 out of 15 participants mentioned actively searching for “real bride” photos on Instagram, Pinterest, and wedding forums before making purchase decisions
Participants expressed that model photos felt “too perfect” and didn’t help them visualize how dresses would look in actual wedding settings
Decision Confidence:
- 11 participants reported feeling uncertain about their choices without seeing peer examples
- Brides wanted to see different body types, venues, styling options, and seasonal contexts
- Many delayed purchases because they couldn’t find sufficient “real world” validation
Current Workarounds:
Users were piecing together information from multiple sources, creating friction in their journey
All participants reported leaving our website to search external platforms for real wedding content
8 out of 15 admitted they sometimes forgot to return to our site after external research
Feature Priorities:
- Participants wanted to see: photos of real brides, dress style numbers clearly labeled, venue types, and styling details
- They valued authentic, unedited photos over highly produced content
- The ability to filter by dress style, body type, or venue was mentioned as highly desirable
Based on these insights, we validated strong demand for a brides sharing section and proceeded with design implementation.
Beyond wanting to see others’ photos, participants showed genuine enthusiasm about sharing their own wedding images. 12 out of 15 interviewees said they would happily submit their photos to help future brides, describing it as a way to “give back” to the community and celebrate their special day. Several mentioned they had already posted extensively on Instagram with dress tags, hoping other brides would find their photos. This organic sharing behavior indicated we could build a sustainable, community-driven feature without relying solely on incentivized content.
JUNZHAO DESIGN 