Seek Discomfort was launched in May 2018 by the founders of the YouTube channel Yes Theory. For years, the Yes Theory guys used the phrase Seek Discomfort to push themselves. It was a constant reminder that the only way to grow was to do things that made them uncomfortable. After several years of using the Seek Discomfort motto, the guys felt its impact in every facet of their lives. That’s when Seek Discomfort was born.
Redesigning an online store at Seek Discomfort.
Role
Director of Operations / UI Designer
Team
1 CEO
1 Shopify Developer
Year
March 2020 – December 2020
The Challenge
Try to breakdown what worked and what didn’t from the current experience.
Design helpful & strategic interfaces that solve the problems the old design couldn’t solve.
Communicate with the developer to make sure designs & experiences are captured perfectly.
Our Approach
Be flexible, iterate quickly, and put out fires when needed.
Practice agile design workflows, while fixing bugs at a moments notice.
Design, test, and build a responsive website using Figma and Shopify Liquid.
Gathering research, understanding our users
Left: A recent Holiday photoshoot with fans. Right: Yes Theory modeling for our Seekers Day drop.
At Seek Discomfort, we were in a lucky position since the Yes Theory guys had already built up such a loyal customer base. It was just about learning what they wanted, and bringing that into the digital space, all while increasing conversion.
We learned 2 powerful things:
- Our Seekers treated each other like family, so we needed a website that made our customers feel like they were a part of something inclusive – not like customers.
- Our Seekers were buying into a philosophy, and not necessary the clothing, but the message behind it. Our website needed to portray that.
We took these 2 lessons, as well as some inspiration from Cuts Clothing, Elwood Clothing, and Madhappy, and started wireframing some of our first iterations.
First inspiration & iterations
When it came to designing our first iteration, and using inspiration from similar brands, we had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted. We needed a place to build the world’s largest family, and we needed conversion to increase so we could continue building the business.
We also needed to design many different parts of the website, without skewing
how customers got used to using the website. We needed to design the: homepage, navigation menu, cart, product page, collection page, and returns & exchanges.
Some of our early inspirations & wireframes
Finalizing our web experience
Using the inspiration and first iterations, along with our new brand direction, I moved on to lead a redesign of the mobile and desktop products set to go live in 2020.
I’m proud to say that our conversion increased by 1.5% and our overall revenue by 30%.
