Nudamag — Natural bodies & Real stories
@nude_yogagirl is an Instagram influencer with millions of followers worldwide. Nudamag was founded by @nude_yogagirl & boyfriend to change the perception of nudity and beauty ideals in our society.
The starting point
Nudamag is a magazine sold online. Users can choose from three different subscriptions or purchase single issues.
Nudamag used to be sold via the old Nudamag.com site that was built on Shopify and used the membership platform Patreon. Even though Shopify and Patreon are good platforms, the visual look and feel on neither of those represented the unique brand of Nudamag well enough. The warmth was missing. This was the starting point for our collaboration.
We started our collaboration with Nudamag by discussing the old service’s limitations as well as the needs, hopes, and dreams for the new online service.
We found the initial direction for visual identity. From the beginning, it was clear that we were not designing just a website, but an e-commerce platform with digital products. Defining the needs and goals of Nudamag’s team and the key functionalities of the service were given priority, and after that, we set out to choose the right platforms.
Visual identity
In the conceptual phase, we defined guidelines for the new visual identity. A bold, stylish and soulful identity that takes the form of a genuine, warm and trustworthy website – this is how it was defined. Nudamag is a magazine filled with very skillfully taken, beautiful photos, so the visual look of the website had to be in line with the images.
After defining the concept, we started to outline the new online service in the form of wireframes. In the analytics data collected, we found that most of the site’s traffic comes from Instagram. This means that the service is used on mobile devices more than anything else, so the design process was started by focusing on mobile views.
Ecommerce optimization based on data
Even though the number of purchases can easily be seen from WooCommerce, we thought it was important to have a proper analytics setup as part of the project. We were responsible for the measurement plan, analytics setup and creating the Data Studio dashboard. We are now able to easily analyze the site’s performance and optimize the ecommerce store based on user data.
Technical implementation
The website and ecommerce store were built on WordPress and WooCommerce. All products are digital, and the user can either purchase single issues or choose a subscription plan. To manage digital products, we used the WooCommerce Subscription plugin. Since Nudamag operates worldwide, the online store had to support multiple currencies and tax rates.
On the site, users are able to create their own account, download digital issues and update their personal and payment information. They can also view the status of their subscription and upgrade or downgrade it. Subscribers also have access to exclusive content via their account.
A reliable operation of the service is important, which is why we utilized automatic testing in the development phase.. Automatic unit tests (PHPUnit) were implemented for critical functions and integration tests (Cypress.io) were implemented for the purchase path.
The modular site consists of content elements designed for Nudamag’s content marketing purposes. All content elements are reusable, which means that the same content can be presented on multiple pages. All the content can also be updated from one place, which makes content management fast and effortless.
Many of the functionalities were specifically customized for the service, which increased the amount of testing needed. During an intensive testing phase, we tested the user experience, user paths, the site’s performance and the different functions. The site was also tested by a number of real Nudamag customers before it launched.
