UX/UI Design: Engager Rings, Custom Engagement Ring App
A design challenge to refresh the brand of a family legacy and improve its user experience in the digital space.
Role: UX/UI Design
Softwares Used: Sketch, Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, Keynote
Duration of Sprint: 3 weeks
The Product: Mobile App and Promotional Website
Nick Coutu was exposed to his parent’s custom jewelery business at a young age and later developed the Engager Rings App to be like Airbnb, swapping homes for independent jewelers.
Users are matched to independent jewelers based on their needs and location.
Coutu firmly stands by the unique experience that a custom ring can provide versus buying a ring off-the-rack. He envisioned that users would be able to experience this with the use of the app.
This is Nick Coutu, the Founder of Engager Rings on Dragons Den in 2018, seeking investment to help bring his vision to life. Unfortunately he was not able to secure a deal.
“Customers can have the magical experience of custom jewelery design online, wherever they are”
/ Nick Coutu, Founder of Engager Rings /
The Design Challenge
With limited funding, Engager app is not able to attract a significant user base, which results in the on-boarding of only one independent jeweler — his parent’s shop Lessard Coutu Custom Jewellers. Without a significant user base, other jewelers are hesitant to join, and without jewelers, the app doesn’t work.
Our design team comprised of UX and UI designers were tasked with investigating into Engager’s services (mobile app + website) to find a design solution that would bridge the gap between users and their services.
We also wanted to keep Coutu’s business goals in mind:
1. To increase sales for his parent’s jewelery shop
2. Attract other jewelers to join the app for a subscription fee with the promise of a large user base
Research
Market Competitive Analysis
To understand where Engager fits in the market with its competitors, we looked at other engagement jewelery companies with a range of customization. A giant in the market both in-store and online is Tiffany & Co. that offers curated designs with no customization. Companies like James Allen and Blue Nile are online retailers that offer customers the option to mix and match ring components to create their unique ring, following the formula: A Stone + B Band + C Setting = Ring.
Content Inventory Audit on Website
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We performed a content inventory audit using a content analysis tool - CAT.
We could see that it is quite content heavy and overwhelming for a potential customer to digest.
Google Analytics From Website
We looked into the google analytics from the current website, and validated that the website was not very successful in keeping users engaged on the website. There are many call-to-action buttons to download the Engager app, which felt ‘pushy’, unlike other companies that lets their branding and clear architecture do the selling.
It was also interesting to see that more than half of the users accessed the website from their mobile.
User Interviews
We interviewed a variety of users whose age ranged from 25-40, male and female, and were from the jeweler side as well as the user side. It was equally important to interview users that have purchased a custom ring to the ones that were looking to make a purchase. We conducted in-person and remote interviews with users to seek out patterns in their motivations and frustrations. We then formed user personas from our findings.
Organize Insights into Patterns
Our team mapped out the journey of the primary user, Jason, the romantic groom. We laid out his full journey from deciding to propose to the actual proposal. We highlighted the high and low points throughout his journey and made a connection to his motivations and frustrations.
Motivations:
- Finding an experienced jeweler that he can trust to guide him through the process
- Wants to be educated on the basics of designing a custom ring, so he can make an informed decision
Frustrations:
- Feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start
- Feeling pressured to design a ring that will get the seal of approval from his fiancée
Feature Prioritization Based on Key Insights
Key User Priorities:
1. Build Trust — Users want to feel they can trust the jeweler’s experience and expertise
2. Learning/Education — Users enjoy learning about an engagement ring as part of the experience
3. Story-telling — Users want to tell a good story with the ring
Then Came the Pivot
With key user priorities established, we compared them with the Engager’s app and website to find that the user’s experience is disjointed with what the products provided. The Engager app was supposed to attract customers to experience a custom ring process online, however it was evident in the research that many still preferred an in-person experience. This got us thinking that it will be more beneficial for us to pivot its mobile app into a web app that is responsive in mobile, which would replace the promotion website as well. We want users to experience interactions on the app that would give them a taste of what the custom ring process looks like, and they could choose between using the online chat to go through it virtually or visit a jeweler.
Design Solutions
Custom GIF
A picture speaks a thousand words, and I wanted to create a moving GIF to showcase Engager’s unique selling point, which is the customization. The GIF is powerful to showcase the endless possibilities that a custom ring can provide.
Initial Sketches
GIF Version 3
Final GIF
Interactive On-boarding Quiz
One thing Coutu, the Founder of Engager said repeatedly was that he wished more users can experience the magical experience a custom ring can bring. We wanted the web app to bring some of that experience to users as they come on. A jeweler will usually try to get to know the receiver of the ring and the love story behind the ring, before figuring out the details. We designed an interactive quiz during the user’s on-boarding to mimic this experience. It will help to ease the user’s frustrations at the beginning of the user journey and also get the user thinking about who the ring is for.
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Hi-Fi Wireframes
Ring Education
I wanted to use a creative way to present these common education pages, to distinguish Engager from the other jewelers. It was important to use high quality images of rings across the web app to establish professionalism and instill trust with users that come across the app.
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Hi-Fi Wireframes
View the full prototype:
Project Reflection
This project was challenging to our team because we made a direction pivot with 1 week to the deadline. It was stressful but we were able to come together pull through with the design. Nick Coutu was very impressed with our work and was excited to present this new image of Engager to investors in his next pitch.
For next steps, we would focus on designing the rest of the responsive screens for mobile, as we only had time to finish the home screen. More user-testing is also needed to ensure we follow an iterative design approach.
Lastly, it was very rewarding to know we made a positive improvement to a user’s experience in making one of the most important decisions in their life!
“The most intimate thing you can do in your lifetime is to ask someone to marry you. When you can capture the essence of your partner in a piece of jewellery, it’s a very special way to say “I love you”.
/ Nick Coutu, Founder of Engager Rings /