The Challenge

Oiselle is a Seattle-based retail company that focuses on empowering women by making running apparel for all shapes, sizes, and athletic abilities while cultivating a supportive community. Despite their strong mission and dedicated following, they have hit a plateau in their growth. Considering they only have a single brick and mortar store and the majority of their business is online, a website redesign became a priority for increasing brand awareness, sales, and positioning Oiselle as a more competitive name within the running e-commerce world.

01. Explore as The consumer

My first step was to learn about Oiselle’s brand outside of the clients POV and instead from a consumers viewpoint. I visited their retail store at University Village as well as spending a considerable amount of time exploring their website, both acting as a shopper and a visitor seeking community.

02. Know the competition

I conducted an analysis of Oiselle’s top competitors to see a birds eye-view of how Oiselle fits in and stands out amongst others. The seven companies chosen were a mix of industry leaders and niche proprietors.

[View the competitive analysis]

03. Meet the customer

Oiselle’s customer base are mostly middle-upper income females who are already dedicated runners. Oiselle would like to reach out and broaden their scope to encompass a more diverse customer base.

Cynthia is more of a casual running enthusiast who doesn’t have an allegiance to a particular brand yet, but she is partial to companies who deliver high quality, functional, and fashionable options. She represents Oiselle’s secondary target audience and their best option to start expanding their demographic.

Strengths

Fashion-forward, performance-focused

Authentic in mission and vision, strong brand voice

Representation of diverse women

Thoughtful and striking photography

Opportunities

Embrace their luxury brand price-point

Create a stronger brand presence across platforms

Clean up and streamline the navigation

Make Oiselle a '“lifestyle”

04. Set The Mood

During my process, I was hyper aware that I needed to find a way to merge fashion and athleticism, the fierce and feminine. However, I also wanted to instill a sense of higher fashion that a customer would expect when shopping at Oiselle’s price-point without becoming elitist and alienating a shopper like Cynthia.

05. Lay It Out

From simple to dynamic, my iterations allowed me to explore how to powerfully represent different aspects of the Oiselle brand—retail, lifestyle, community—early on in development. They also helped me to break out of a more traditional layout or reign me back in when I was being too ambitious.

Solution

Mobile

With an on-the-go mobile user is mind, I shorten the page lengths and I streamlined the experience by keeping only the essential functions and content.