Background
Dreamknit is a startup delivering custom sweater patterns through their design tool. Customers can choose their preferences in fit, neckline, sleeves, and more to design their dream sweater. Dreamknit reached out to us in hopes of creating a smoother experience for their users when choosing yarn, as they were currently looking at expanding their business so that users also can buy yarn through Dreamknit in the future.
My role
Scope
I acted as lead designer along with Julie Hoven. I played a big role in implementing our design decisions into a working Figma prototype.
UX Design, User testing
Team members
Tools
Julie Hoven via Pango Design
Figma
Getting to know their design tool
The initial phase of the project mainly consisted of getting to know Dreamknit's existing design tool and solutions, and looking at how the customer's problems could be solved. In advance of the project, Dreamknit had carried out surveys on social media where they had received feedback and wishes for further development. Our work consisted of analyzing the data they had received and extracting the most important pain points to redesign the service with Dreamknit and their customers' needs in mind.
Testing on real users
Dreamknit wanted us to make use of their contacts to carry out user tests. A total of five people with different backgrounds in knitting were recruited. Some were experts, while others were beginners. By user testing people with different experience with knitting, we ensure that the service we design is intuitive for all user groups.
A part of working with startups is that they often don't allocate time and resources into user testings. We were lucky enough that we allowed a few hours dedicated to user testing, hence why we didn't get to have more user tests.
A more intuitive design tool
We delivered a redesigned yarn database with a more intuitive user flow for both mobile and desktop. Users' choices and options have been made more visible for a better user experience. We also added new features that have been requested by Dreamknit's customers, such as a tool for suggesting yarn types with a short quiz.
Retrospective
This was my first design project with an actual customer. It was exciting to actually experience how it is to work with a customer's needs and goals. Especially has it been fun to see the features we design being rolled out in production.
