The Gentlemen's W-S
a micro-site for Williams-Sonoma catering to men with a curatorial sense of style and expertise in the kitchen
The Gentleman's Williams-Sonoma: Project Overview
Williams-Sonoma was established to bring the best of European kitchen equipment to the US. Chuck Williams started in a former hardware store and the rest is history. They are known for beautiful and high-quality equipment, amazing customer service, and expert advice. The one thing that seems to be missing is how they connect with their MALE customers. The primary aesthetic and message of W-S seem to be aimed at an older, affluent female. Since we know that the home kitchen and its occupants have evolved, I wanted to look at a younger, male audience.
The goal here is to stay true to everything amazing about W-S while also meeting a 35-ish, male customer at a curatorial eye where he already is shopping - on his phone! This experience had to take less time, use more accessible language, connect to a group of trusted experts this customer already knows, and reduce the number of items to view. What does that mean to the platform? It's fast, mobile, and easy.
A small selection of screens, reading left to right, top to bottom:
1. The Home Screen shows you how to navigate quickly through product categories, rooms of the house, brands, types of events, and experts to find exactly what you need. In our conversations with our users, each one mentioned that they usually came to the site for a purpose - they needed a specific piece of equipment mentioned in a recipe or they were having people over and needed guidance.
2. We were surprised at how passionate the guys were about their favorite chefs. They knew so much about them and were devoted to their recipes; they felt like some of these people had literally taught them to cook. BUT. . . they found them (mostly) on the Food Network and other channels and some on streaming platforms. So, the cast of characters had some overlap with traditional home magazines (Ina Garten, etc.), but there were lots of new faces too.
3. If their favorite chef said to use All-Clad, they didn't want to look at any other brand. The recommendation meant everything.
4. Sometimes they wanted to know the details and specifications of a product; you know, it's kind of like knowing how fast your car will go. More often, they needed to buy it or share it with someone like Mom for their B-day list.
5. Lots of shopping experiences give our users the quick review of purchases with 1-click and this was a great way to see how much their purchase would be. When hosting an event, they might put several things in the bag and then review the overall cost. At that point, having a quick way to delete something and buy was important.
6. Getting advice about how to host friends at home was something they wanted. Since they considered W-S to be the expert in that (over their chefs), they wanted some quick material on what to do for different events - a date, a dinner, or game night.
7. Being able to see a whole host of products from their favorite brands and chefs was a great way to think about building their "collection" of equipment to cook or entertain.
6 & 7 were also big for seeing things by rooms in the house.
8. For every one of our guys, sites like Amazon were crushing it by allowing them to save all of their information. This meant they could buy fast and with confidence that all of the information was correct even though they might be ordering something while on a break in their basketball game. Having the display of what was previously saved (shipping info or credit card info) was great as a reminder to update it if something had changed.
9. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if you could also find more great recipes to try while you were there. YES! And they have lists of equipment you might need. YES!
When we tested it, the guys said they really liked that the mobile site didn't overwhelm them with too many things, but it did have deep information in the areas that were important. We invited a few over them over to dinner to test it. Not surprisingly, the discussion turned to which of their favorite chefs was the best. Did we mention how important it is for this user to know that he found the very best thing out there?
The Gentleman's Williams-Sonoma: PRESENTATION
