eCOMM RE-PLATFORM
My Role: Manager, Ux Lead
CHALLENGE
The existing R+F eCommerce experience was built on legacy technology that could not scale with the organization. The company's goal was to migrate the site onto SAP's Hybris Platform.
OVERVIEW
This project was a vast undertaking requiring intensive cross functional collaboration over the course of 2018 between Ux, Product, Development, Vendors and the C Suite Leadership. The project objectives and aggressive timelines required the initial Ux team of 2 to scale to a total of 13 designers in order to deliver the experience.
PROCESS
In the initial stages of the project, Ux proposed a process to educate and align the various functional areas that needed to partner to deliver the experience.
USER FLOWS
User flows were generated for each of the major feature themes (BROWSE, CHECKOUT, ENROLLMENT, MANAGE ACCOUNT, LOYALTY) using existing personas. These were leveraged to align the working team on business requirements deep dives as they pertained to feature functionality.
PERSONAS
Account Management User Flows
DESIGN STRATEGY
For each feature, a Ux hypothesis was created to ground the team
RUNWAY
This is my favorite step in the design process. It's an immersive exercise where the collision of competitive analysis, metrics, requirements and constraints are explored. It's messy, tends to involve a lot of white boarding, problem framing and analog exercises.
INTERACTION
Early on in the project I had the luxury of designing for a number of features. Navigation, critical to successful way finding across the experience was a feature I felt passionate about taking on.
For navigation, light-weight mobile first wireframes were created to validate requirements with our product partners.
InVision prototypes were then created to define the interaction and experience:
Next, the above prototypes were extended to code by pairing with the UI Developer on the Ux team to accurately depict the animations, transitions and micro-interactions. These were then added to the R+F CLARITY Design System and handed off to developers.
Last an exploration from a visuals and scalability standpoint was explored. This was presented to the broader working team for feedback and buy in.
Finally, those inputs were folded in and handed off to Visual Design:
DESIGN CRITIQUE
Throughout all design sprints, weekly Design Critiques within the Ux Team insured feedback from and alignment with the broader team as well as consistency and adherence to the R+F CLARITY Design System. 
REVIEW CYCLES
In parallel, a weekly cadence of review cycles with product, development and business stakeholders were held as we journeyed together through each step of the process to insure inclusion and alignment.
RESEARCH
Stakeholder and Ux Team insights were iterated into the designs and then pushed to InVision prototypes for usability testing in bi-weekly usability testing sessions.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The Ux Research team ran qualitative bi-weekly sessions for the duration of 2018 testing all of the features.
Key Callout
The finding that a usage video was expected on the product detail page and an extreme value add for users was leveraged to manage our development vendor into implementing this feature.
Key Callout
The findings around swatch size, purchase pressure and diversity were leveraged to:
1. Work with Brand to have photography that represented diverse models with on skin product samples
2. Initiated an additional "Try It On" feature so users could see the product on a selfie
Synthesis of user feedback was presented to the cross-functional team which collaborated to determine which insights met the venn of user needs, business needs and development constraints and would be incorporated into the final experience.
Our Ux Research team's bi-weekly UxR tests resulted in a total of 98 in-person qualitative interviews to support the re-platform effort. Their contributions in this endeavor were integral to the success of the project.
MVP LAUNCHES JUNE 2019
RETRO
A dedicated UX Project Manager is crucial to the success of delivering projects of this magnitude.
