Design Sprint
The intention was to build common understanding, uncover the most critical issues of the e-commerce website, and create and test the design solution.
The intention was to build common understanding, uncover the most critical issues of the e-commerce website, and create and test the design solution.
Design a mobile experience that allows the value skeptic, a new customer, can easily find the useful information he requires to make an informed purchase.
I prepared, documented and memorized this experience as a guidebook for future design sprint activities. The Design Sprint is a methodology of product design process that puts the business, technology and especially the user in the center.
We kicked off by developing a common understanding for our cross-functional team.
We locked down to one persona and clarified the challenge statement - “Design an experience that allows Jeff, the value skeptic, as a new customer can easily find the useful information he requires to make an informed purchase. ”
UX team presented user research findings and personas in order to build up the user-centered mindset in the company.
Brand team explained and their goal to maintain the look and feel of "comfort", “premium" fabric in branding.
Merch team said that smart fabric is one of Tommy John’s value props and let us examine Product Categorization and Naming Convention.
Analyst showed us data of site performance that validated the user journey in research.
The Design Sprint is a great chance to learn from people that I work with around me.
Though we all worked in an open space, I didn't know what exactly the other members do at their daily job before the workshop. The experience of the site has always been directly and indirectly impacted by their decisions. Sadly, they had no idea what I do other than making the site look pretty.
We prioritized and uncovered TWO Most Critical Issues by consolidating and voting on different subjects.
One of Tommy John's selling points is the innovative fabrics that improve customer's wearing experience.
There were different perceptions of product hierarchy in different departments. Even internal employees could not distinguish the fabrics from
one another. It made the website fail to convey the benefits to our customer. The reason is the company was missing a structural product hierarchy and missing a clear strategy in product messaging.
On the listing page, there were overwhelmingly too many options and visual distractions. The filters are links to different sub-pages and they cannot multiply in order to narrow down options.
The interchangeable product benefits make customers difficult to choose
suitable product. Customers are unsure about the value proposition and cannot justify the
high price point.
This part was like playing with Lego bricks: gather useful components, then convert them into something original and new.
You might think that people have to come up with ground-breaking brilliant new ideas to solve the problems. However, when you look at any great innovation, it’s actually built on remixing and improving old ideas.
We would gather solutions from other industries, other companies or old ideas that have been floating around in company for a while.
I wanted members not to restrain their creativity by the conventional concept of Category Page and Product Page. I didn't strictly divide up the user story and assign someone to each section. I let team members sketch the whole story: from landing on the homepage until deciding to make a purchase.
However, the output came back disorganized. Next time I might execute differently.
The third day is about decision making. Our team had a stack of solutions based on their paper sketches from yesterday. We critiqued each solution and decided which ones have the best chance of achieving the long-term goal.
The storyboard: a step-by-step plan for our prototype
The new ideas might have seemed compelling but they are abstract without going through common understanding. They would deviant the team from the ideas they sketched yesterday.
Prototyping day! It is when all of the sketches, ideas, and decisions come together into a realistic prototype that we can test next day.
I suggested we decipher the product benefits into 2 layers and expected the copy would be easier to digest. We specifically designed two approaches of the fabric section for testing which communicates better.
The parent layer is universal benefits that apply to all underwear regardless styles, fabric, color and size.
The child layer is the fabric benefits that fit in different life scenarios to match customers' needs.
Based on the user’s feedback and business requests, we specifically designed this funnel to help Jeff find his ideal product — a pair of underwear.
Here are 2 variants of Product Benefit Page. Then I used Invision to stick components altogether to make sure that it flows as a cohesive prototype for tomorrow's A/B Testing.
To prepare tomorrow's testing session, we had written a script and set up the 2 rooms and live streaming devices. One for UX researcher to conduct the user interview and the prototype testing, the other room for other teammates to observe the interview and the screen recording.
https://invis.io/WP9XDM78XNext time, I only need to team up with the members whose daily job involves content creation. The rest of the team can go back to their everyday work routine.
Last day of the Sprint is all about validation. While the UX researcher was conducing five sessions of user testing in one room, I was in the other room observing the interviews and taking notes.
When I was rewatching the test recordings afterwards, I noticed there were discrepancy and confusion occurred in users' perceptions. Why they didn't understand what we wanted to say in the copy?
One of the biggest selling point for Tommy John is the Smart Fabrics. Unfortunately, the messaging of benefits were not successfully conveyed to customers. With interchangeable benefits and confusing technical terms, customers who visited the fabric page still dropped off quickly.
Follow up with the members after sprint and keep them in the loop whether they are still interested or not. Remember to make an index file that documents every step of the process and includes all the access to research findings, lighting demos and talks, etc.