Creating a TOV and IA redesign

Bringing viability to AR tooling for a classic Italian leather company

Problem

Anna Cloud is an Italian personalised leather manufacturer that gives you the tools to design your own bag from scratch using AR 3D-design software. Following a sudden spike in demand, Anna Cloud are now looking to expand their market beyond Italy. We proposed a new English-language website and redesign to boost Google ranking, as well as attract and speak to a wider audience. We also had to overcome user ambivalence to the use of AR tech in design and devised fun and engaging educational material that explained what AR was through encouraging play and experimentation.

What I did

• Devised all copy throughout site infrastructure, from landing page, to bio and CRM.
• Designed site map, wireframes and IA hierarchy.
• Devised TOV guides.
• Developed user personas.
• Developed long-term content strategy based on customer persona and template creation, including newsletter and monthly blogposts to build customer base

Constraints

• Company in growth hack phase, with limited resource
• Cultural misalignment between brand heritage and nascent tech

How I did it

AnnaCloud had a growing global customer base, but people were browsing, designing and then not progressing to checkout. I started by kicking off a research study to understand more about our customer base.

Research alerted us to a reticence to use the augmented reality software necessary to generate design. We needed to devise a new TOV for Anna Cloud's English-speaking website to overcome user ambivalence and empower customers. At a sit-down call with the CEO we discussed the brand’s ethos and image and how we could tie this into the company goals to encourage use of AR.

Here were some key words, he mentioned during our chat: Italian, camp, eclectic, loud and colourful, with a strong 90s throwback. Betty Spaghetti. Think Fiorucci. Think a Cassio Baby-G wristwatch.

Using these terms as a starting point, I drew up a customer persona, followed by a Tone of Voice document and branding deck.

How we envisioned their audience should reflect in visual branding and content of the website and bag creation tooling.

Slide from brand deck about positioning the brand as eclectic, modern, fun.

Sample slide from TOV deck. I wanted us to really lean into the eclectic and playful side of the brand.

Our audience were used to being ‘consumers’, not creators. As consumers of luxury fashion, they expected Anna Cloud’s bespoke design service to be done for them, but (1) that ultimately undermined the value of the brand, (2) it was not feasible with such a small design team. I felt the best way to get people to engage with this was to lean into the idea of childhood wonder and play.

Remember when you were a child and you felt like you had the whole world at your feet? That’s the vibe I wanted to bring to Anna Cloud. We want to demystify tech and adjacent wearables by taking users back to that childlike state of learning. Make our site, their playground.

I then worked with a designer to go about reviewing and redesigning the website. This was what it looked like before:

The solution

Click to view website after redesign.

• Visual branding. We simplified the IA and leaned into the colourful and playful side.
• Styling. We used found tools, such as pipes and screws to give it a workshop vibe.
• Naming. We gave each bag a personality and a name that our users could relate with.

Demystifying and simplifying the design process by breaking it down into 3 simple steps helped with engagement.

Impact

• 25% increase in checkout boosting annual sales by 80,000Euros
• 37% increase in sales traffic