Also Organics (ST8MNT)

How I designed an e-commerce site that helped a new CBD wellness brand break into a saturated, misconception-heavy market — by leading with education and designing for a wider audience than the industry typically targets.

My role

UX Designer

Team

ST8MNT Brand Agency

Timeline

July 2019 - March 2020

The 2018 Agriculture Improvement Act opened the door for legal CBD sales in the US, and the market flooded almost immediately. Within a short window, CBD products were appearing everywhere from wellness boutiques to gas station shelves — launched by everyone from small indie brands to celebrity product lines.Also Organics makes personal wellness products from 100% organic, American-grown hemp. The quality was genuinely differentiated, but quality alone wasn't enough in a market this crowded. The brand needed a digital presence that could cut through the noise, establish trust, and reach a customer beyond the narrow demographic most CBD brands were designing for.

Discovery + User Research

The Problem

"I'm curious about CBD for my joint pain, but I don't know where to start or who to trust. Most of these sites feel like they're not talking to me."
‍

The CBD market had two compounding problems that the site needed to address:
‍

Widespread consumer skepticism. Despite growing interest in CBD for health and wellness, many potential customers — particularly older demographics — were held back by misinformation, uncertainty about legality, and a lack of trusted information about actual health benefits.
‍
A narrow industry visual language. Most CBD brands were designed for a young, wellness-savvy consumer. This left a significant portion of the addressable market — adults seeking CBD for chronic pain, sleep, or anxiety — feeling like the category wasn't for them.
‍

The design challenge was therefore two-part: build a shopping experience that converted, and build a brand experience that made a broader audience feel seen and informed rather than alienated.

My Approach

Before wireframing, I needed to understand the competitive landscape and the information gaps that were actually stopping people from buying. I structured the discovery work in two phases.

Phase 1

Audited the visual and content strategies of existing CBD brands to identify where the category was converging — and where there was genuine white space. The demographic skew toward younger consumers was consistent and significant across competitors.

Phase 2

Mapped the most common questions and misconceptions surrounding CBD to identify what educational content the site needed to carry. The goal was to answer the questions that were blocking purchase decisions before a user ever reached the product page.

The strategic direction that emerged: lead with education and inclusivity rather than lifestyle aesthetics. Use the site to reduce the distance between "I've heard about CBD" and "I know which product is right for me."

Design Process

I established the site architecture through low-fidelity wireframes, working through the structure of each section before moving to visual design. The key structural decision was where to place educational content relative to product pages — too early and it felt like a lecture; too late and skeptical users had already bounced.
‍

The solution was to weave education into the shopping journey rather than separating it into a standalone section. Product pages carried plain-language benefit content alongside product specs. A guided quiz surfaced before users were asked to choose between products independently. This kept the experience from feeling like homework while still addressing the information gaps driving hesitation.
‍

For the visual direction, I pushed against the industry norm of muted greens and earthy minimalism. Also Organics' positioning as an active-lifestyle brand warranted brighter, more energetic visuals — with photography that showed a wider age range than competitors were using.

Execution + Learnings

The final product

The final high fidelity prototypes relied heavily on bright colors, active lifestyle photography and CTA's that made it easy for the user to peruse the sites products, take a personalized product quiz or learn more about the health benefits of CBD.

Shop with smart filtering

A product browsing experience with filtering by potency and audience — adult, kids, and pets — that acknowledged the real diversity of Also Organics' customer base from the start. A quick-add feature let users add products to their cart without leaving the browse view, reducing friction in the purchase flow.

Product recommendation quiz

A short, guided quiz that asked users about their wellness goals and recommended the right product based on their answers. This addressed the most common drop-off point for first-time CBD buyers — not knowing where to start — and gave the brand a way to have a personalized conversation with customers at scale.

Responsive and global elements

The Outcome

The site launched as Also Organics' primary e-commerce presence, giving the brand a digital storefront that matched its product quality and stood apart visually from category competitors. The quiz and educational content layers addressed the trust and information barriers that were holding back purchase decisions from older and first-time CBD buyers — the audience the industry was largely leaving underserved.

What I'd Do Differently

The educational content strategy was directionally right, but built largely on competitive analysis and assumptions about consumer knowledge gaps rather than direct user research. With more time, I'd have wanted to run even lightweight interviews with CBD-curious but unconverted consumers to pressure-test where the actual hesitations lived. Some of the information architecture decisions — particularly around how much education to surface before the shop — were judgment calls I'd feel more confident about with real user data behind them.

Next Project

Partselerate