Ghost Flower Activewear

Experiential product design and management from concept to launch

It Started with A Magic Marker…

The founder of Ghost Flower approached me in late 2016 to help with an idea:

An avid Yogi, she had incorporated stretching along the ”Meridians” (energy channels described by Chinese Medicine) into her practice. She had drawn the channels on several pairs of old leggings to help her visualize the channels.

She found this incredibly helpful. Her idea was to offer yoga clothes + an app + digital content that could help wearers understand and activate their body’s energy network.

Assessing Market OpportunityWe started with a survey of the activewear market –market trends/players, the role (and profitability of) niche players, and competitive instructional apps.

The takeaways from that survey were:1) The activewear market is a frothy, highly-competitive

market, dominated by a few large players -- but with room for niche players with a unique/compelling story (particularly at high end)

2) The market for yoga instructional apps is highly saturated, with very few apps having impact (and even fewer making money)

3) “Meridian Yoga” is a largely untapped market space. Very few apps, products, classes targeted at an Eastern-medicine-based approach.

In short, there was market space for such a concept, but it would be tough sledding…

User InterviewsI then interviewed 14 yogis to understand their practice habits, buying behavior, and receptivity to the core concepts behind Ghost Flower.

What we found was encouraging:

Yogis were intrigued and curious about a practice that helps unlock the body’s energy channels -- and were receptive to a product that would help them do that.

But…

1) Not much use of, or interest in, instructional apps. Hard to use while practicing Yoga. Strong interest in workshops/classes.

2) Most were intrigued by the idea of integrating meridians into yoga wear – but had a hard time envisioning such a product.

3) All were very clear that the underlying activewear product had to be great. Not willing to compromise fit, wearability or looks.

Product Innovation WorkshopI then led a product innovation workshop -- with designers, movement experts and Eastern medicine practitioners, to define a potential physical + digital product offering.

The founders wanted to explore a full activewear collection, built around the Chinese meridians. But they were unsure how to organize the product line.

A core issue: There are 12 meridians on the body and including them all in one product would look like something out of TRON. Plus, each Meridian is associated with a different health & emotional benefit.

We looked at multiple ways to organize the line – by activity, by health benefit, by Yin and Yang channels – but nothing resonated.

With our time together running short, we still hadn’t cracked the nut. But then we had a breakthrough…

Breakthrough: Get Into Your ElementDuring a tea break, the acupressure expert in the group casually threw out that we might organize the product line around the Chinese element.

There are 5 Chinese elements -- each is associated with 2 meridians (a Yin and Yang channel), a specific set of physical and emotional benefits, and a season.

Ghost Flower could offer 5 element collections, each built around the 2 meridians, and in colors/designs that evoke the season of the elements. And offer movement flow videos for each element.

This was the “AHA!” moment. Within an hour, we had mapped out the entire collection, plus potential extended product offerings…

On to Execution: Designing the Digital ExperienceWith a viable product concept in place, we created three teams (apparel design, health & performance, and digital experience).

The founders asked me to lead the digital experience team.

While we had discarded the idea of an app, they still wanted the Ghost Flower website to be a unique, highly-experiential digital storefront.

With some initial concepts in hand, we engaged a LA-based digital design firm known for working with innovative fashion and wellness brands.

Initial experiential concepts submitted to our agency

Designing the Digital ExperienceI served as the client-side product owner in the agency’s Agile process.

After establishing our brand visual identity and logo, we began iterating on site design, using clickable InVision prototypes and Sketch as collaboration vehicles.

Our key challenge: Creating a site that lets casual buyers “just shop” while allowing more serious Yogis to dive deeper into the science and practice.

We agreed we would aim for “progressive discovery” – a site structure that would allow users to go as deep as they wanted, without distracting casual shoppers.

Digital Design: Inspired by the Elements

As we iterated on the site design, we found that the element structure provided an ideal platform for progressive discovery.

We could talk about the elements in a superficial and fun way, or we could dive into deep detail about the meridians, acupressure points and associated Yoga poses associated with them.

With this construct in place, we completed site design and began beta development.

Beta User TestingTwo months before launch, we had the beta site ready for internal and external testing.

I conducted 11 one-hour interviews, where testers were asked to interact freely with the site and “think out loud”.

The first 5 user tests were discouraging. Casual shoppers were getting distracted and annoyed by the deeper dive content. And there was simply too much content for serious practitioners to consume.

It became clear that we had not created enough separation between shopping content and science/practice content….

Beta User Testing – Round 2Before the next testing round, I made several major changes to the site:

1) Reorganized the main navigation. Reduced menu items and separated the nav into shopping items on the right, and deeper dive content on the left.

2) Replaced conceptual navigation terms (e.g. “Learn”, “Move”) with more specific, descriptive terms.

3) Eliminated several content pages that were either adding little value or just flat confusing users

The difference was night and day… The last 6 users navigated the site cleanly and efficiently. Casual buyers shopped efficiently – and serious practitioners discovered content progressively (with some ‘surprise and delight’ moments)

Most importantly, users responded extremely positively to the product offering.

Delivering the End-to-End Platform With the final design locked, we moved into final execution mode.

Over the next 6 weeks: • I tracked and drove resolution of

over two hundred functional and cosmetic issues with the site

• Conducted three rounds of user acceptance testing.

• Managed the integration of a experimental 360 -degree interactive feature

• Fully configured the Shopify backend and uploaded all content to the site

• Configured and tested fulfillment integration and resolved numerous Shopify + 3PL integration issues.

• Conducted two rounds of end-to-end user experience testing (shopping, ordering, payment, delivery and product return) – and resolved issues the testing uncovered.

Ghost Flower: Channel Your EnergyIn the end, our team delivered against the product vision:

• Fashionable and functional premium activewear that integrates energy channels and points, and that has gotten rave reviews from early customers

• An experiential website (delivered on time and on budget) that provides a compelling and efficient shopping process -- while allowing interested users to dive deeper into the science and practice

• An ‘extended product’ of classes, workshops, blog and video content

Ghost Flower launched in March 2018. I was excited and honored to be part of the process of launching a new brand!