Case Study
As a Retail company founded in 1938, REI has strong traditions in their industry, but needed to adapt and evolve to be relevant to new audiences. Although REI is a darling in the outdoor industry, people aren't aware that REI sells bikes — much less childrens bikes. This awareness is not limited to potential new customers but also within their current, loyal customer base. In order to understand what roadblocks and possibilities exist to increase sales in this space, the REI Cycle Team asked us to work with them to provide research, interviews, workshops and brainstorming to identify potential opportunities to address the market gap.
The Process
Focusing on a Test and Learn approach to our initial discovery, our team worked to identify a series of generative tests, which I led in UserTesting.com. We used these tests to form initial hypothesis about the customer problems and un-met needs. From there, I dug deeper into the problem statement and conducted live interviews, competitive analysis, and worked in tandem with the product team and external vendor hired for in-depth interviews and assessments.
Our product team worked closely with the stakeholders to identify the problem statement. We reached out to other related teams within the enterprise organization to share resources and research, identify journey maps, validate overall hypothesis and get a gut-check on our understanding of the internal business landscape.
In addition to breaking down organizational pillars, our process included a robust, ongoing user testing and interview cadence. Since we were not able to interview children directly, we worked to
Highlights Include
- Competitive Analysis
- Content Testing
- Documentation
- User Interviews
- User Testing
- Content Testing
- Product Evangelism
- Stakeholder Workshops
- Test and Learn Discovery
- User Research
Methodologies
- UX Strategy
- Brainstorming Workshops
- Stakeholder Interviews
- UX / UI Design
- Branding and Visual Design
- Accessibility
Tools
- Design System
- Figma
- Mural
- UserTesting.com
Findings
Through our rigorous research process, we were able to identify some interesting insights; for example, although the stakeholder team was eager to expand the Kids' Bike offerings to try to compete with big box stores for little kid / beginner bikes, we identified a clear gap in the market for tweens aged 9 – 12.
Additional research helped us understand parental sentiment around the bike-buying experience, and identified deeply held beliefs about how parents believed that learning to ride a bike is an essential childhood experience.