GAPIANNE, a women’s intimate wellness platform and e-commerce
CONTEXTTEAMDURATIONUX DESIGN SPRINT TO SUPPORT BUSINESS NEEDSWITH UX DESIGNER CÉLINE BOUCHÉ14 DAYS
Gapianne has received an overwhelmingly positive response since its inception, and the in-store boutique in Annecy has been working well. However, despite the increase in traffic on their website, the conversion rate is low. Many visitors leave their baskets full without going through with their purchases. Gapianne would like to retranscribe the more personalized in-store experience to their online space and shop.
Brief / Overview
Researching the market
and our user
Our research phase spanned market and secondary research to quantitative and qualitative user research.
After studying the website in more detail, my partner UX designer and I set off to do some secondary research on the femtech and wellness market and industry, but also the context of taboos in the medical and start-up sector as well as more statistical information about women’s intimate and sexual health.
Summarizing the context of women’s intimate wellness
We noted that while the wellness market continues to grow 8–12% each year since 2010, women’s sex life is still very much a taboo topic, despite its respective evolution over the course of the last 30+ years.
Using existing data from Google Analytics
Reviewing Google analytics from the website, we were able to confirm some basic information on the users’ profile and interactions with the website, most notably that the age groups most present on the website, the most-visited pages and flow from page to page (including drop-off rate) as well as information on time spent on the website, geographic location, type of operating system used and more. This was all precious info as we went forward with our primary research as well as, later on, creating our persona!
A laundry list of indirect competitors proved useful
Gapianne shared with us a laundry list of indirect and aspirational competitors which was super helpful. We looked at specialized and general intimate wellness companies, but also more generally beauty and mental health competitors that had a good grasp on accompanying clients in finding the right products and solutions for their needs. We studied and deconstructed their websites, paying special attention to the form and function of diagnostics / quizzes, the terminology used, and the integration of advice and information with product recommendations.
Quantitative Research
Using Gapianne’s Shopify database of nearly 3.000 visitors (essentially anyone who has entered their email on the website) we were able to contact about ⅔ of visitors who had opted in to receive communications from Gapianne for our survey and qualitative interviews.
After one share via Gapianne’s newsletter and a couple of mentions in the company’s Insta stories over a period of three days, we received nearly 70 responses, 95% women from 18–66 years old.
We inquired about everything from the users’ profile and interests to the ways in which they search for information and advice and their purchasing habits around women’s intimate wellness. The results were rich and informative, and aligned with the analytics, which was interesting to see.
were the topics Gapianne women were most interested in
Pleasure & intimate self-care
50%
didn’t know the '“Advice” section on the website existed
41%
have never purchased anything on the website but would like to do so in the future
Qualitative Research
We were also able to conduct five in-depth interviews with Gapianne followers and clients, women aged 21–39 living in metropolitan France, mostly in and around Paris and Lyon.
Like the quantitative study, the information gleaned was really insightful. What’s more — the time we shared face-to-(virtual) face allowed us to dig deeper and better understand the obstacles and checks that might block women from pursuing their intimate self-care.
On a more surface level, financial restrictions were often cited. Upon further explanation, more psychological barriers appeared — feeling like my body is not doing its job, like there’s a necessary “jump” to take in order to buy lube or a vibrator, and to actually dedicate resources to not just one’s wellbeing, but one’s intimate wellbeing.
Defining the problem and identifying our user
We were able to create one of the personas that represents Gapianne’s public — Chloé, 28 years old, who lives in Paris, tries to live according to her strong feminist and environmentally-responsible values, and is actively looking to feel fulfilled in her intimate and sexual life.
This then allowed us to better identify the user need and define it in a problem statement:
Young women with strong feminist values, who are conscious of their intimate wellbeing, need to find reliable information and be guided towards natural products and solutions so that they can be better fulfilled in their intimate and sexual life, because they currently are lacking personalized advice that can help them take better care of themselves.
Ideation & feature prioritisation
With my co-designer Celine, we facilitated an ideation session with the four founders of Gapianne which was fun and rich with ideas, albeit longer than planned!
We did one of our favorite methods, crazy 8’s, sticking to pen and paper and limited time in order to yield as many different results as possible.
Once everyone explained their sketches and ideas and we used dot voting to select the ones that interested us the most, it was up to Celine and I to prioritize. We focused on three areas:
Highlighting the added value
A better visibility of the global offer (products and advice) from the home page
Recommendations “quiz”
A diagnostic / quiz to support clients and visitors in discerning the needed information and solutions
Products +advice
Better integration of products and advice throughout the user flow from home to purchase
We did three rounds of prototypes and testing over a period of seven days, and although short, we were able to see clearly what was working and what was problematic in our designs quite quickly.
Prototyping and Testing
Low-fidelity Wireframes
Our concept testing with the low-fidelity prototype revealed a few major problem areas which we then spent the week correcting:
What does the term “Besoins” (or “Needs” in English) evoke for you? Gapianne had this title as a global category linking to their themed product pages, and amongst the 15 different testers, responses were nearly split down the middle. For some, they expected “besoins” to lead them to products, whilst others expected advice and information.
Parts of our design that were redundant or incoherent were pointed out straight away, and generally we got a sense that there was an appreciation for the distinction between the products and advice and that the page was starting to feel more “personal”. We were inspired to implement a wishlist feature for products and information in our future design…
Other testers reminded us of different ways in which sites recommend additional products, like “other users have liked this” or “complete your purchase with these items”
Mid-fidelity Wireframes
Next, after the mid-fidelity wireframes were created we tested again for usability.
The navigation of the home page was much more clear. We started getting into more usability details, such as having an icon for the wishlist in the navigation bar for easy access to favorited items and articles.
Different terminology that was similarly unclear was also tested, such as the preference for “diagnostic” or “quiz”. Although French connotation of the word quiz might be more gamified and light, diagnostic was too medicalized for many of the users.
Features and modifications such as the chat button on the home page, or the product page (with added videos and articles as well as reorganized content) were proposed to users for feedback. Users responded well to the product page and generally told us that the chat button ain’t really needed here, but thanks!
High-fidelity Wireframes
Finally, with our high-fidelity prototypes, we were able to conduct one last usability test along with a desirability test.
The navigation was super clear, Gapianne’s value and offer, of being the leading partner in intimate wellness information and solutions was understood from the get-go and users really appreciated the ability to have all of their findings and favorites in one place — their Gapianne wishlist. They described the prototype as clear, attractive and easy to use.
Although Gapianne’s esthetic and presentation were always something cited by users as one of the criteria they really appreciated — there were some comments made about the style — lots of black and uppercase text which some found a bit aggressive.
Gapianne: our prototype
Our prototype consisted of modifications of three different sections: the home screen, the advice (“conseils”) section and the product section (individual product page and product results page)
Insights & Next Steps
Next step 1: Review & harmonise the style
As we were two UX designers working on this project within a tight deadline — one of the next steps we could have done was to spend a bit more time working on reviewing and harmonizing the style — within our wireframes but also within the larger design system. The website currently has quite a bit of black and upppercase, as well as different sized typefaces and alternating gray / white background, and it would be interesting to see how we could simplify and “ventilate” a bit each screen, as there is already so much information on the pages.
Next step 2: More user testing !
After incorporating feedback from the Gapianne team, assessing the technical feasibility with their developers, we also would have loved to do some more user testing with the terminology and new functions selected.
Overall: An exciting collaboration
It was exciting to be a part of Gapianne’s journey and mission to empowering women with their intimate wellness. I’m super grateful to be trusted with the open conversations and personal stories I had during the qualitative interviews.
I’m pretty proud of what we were able to propose in such a short period of time. The presentation could have been a little more neat and sleek, but I think that the suggestions we made added a lot of value to gapianne.com and I’m excited to see what they will implement going forward.