Providing users with a more direct path to purchase and product recommendations
Cole Haan eCommerce
Overview
This project involved full sweeping UX and UI updates to modernize a major footwear brand's digital product experience, elevating its online presence to meet the evolving demands of today's tech-savvy consumers.
My role:
→ UX Strategy
→UX Design
→Interaction Design
→ Prototyping
(01)
Identifying and meeting the needs of modern consumers
Using an extensive external research report I identified the following points as key ways for Cole Haan to better meet and exceed the expectations of their target market:
→Convenient and well-curated and product recommendations
→Elevate critical purchase info
→Streamlined wayfinding and discovery
→Predictive search experience
(02)
Business goal alignment
The client stakeholders provided key goals that would guide our design decisions throughout the project:
→Get users to product detail pages more efficiently
→Tap into a younger, urban consumer target
→Create trust to eliminate consumer hesitation
→Elevate newer product ranges and categories
→Create cross-selling opportunities
(03)
Enhanced wayfinding encourages engagement and reduces cognitive load
With the addition of visual sub-category callouts at the top of the page, users don't have to think hard about how to move through the site. This improves the overall experience by:
→Reducing cognitive load, allowing them to focus more on exploring products and making purchasing decisions rather than figuring out how to get around.
→Allows for curated promotion of new or the most timely relevant sub-categories
(04)
Giving users a direct path from browsing to buying
I wanted to provide an efficient, yet engaging, shopping experience that aligns with the fast-paced lifestyles of the new target audiences. This was achieved by:
→Creating a quick and frictionless path to get products into the cart
→Introducing cross-selling recommendations in the cart for additional sales opportunities
→Modernizing the brand's digital product experience to better align with new innovative product lines
(05)
Providing clear, upfront information on the product detail page empowers users to make informed decisions quickly.
This reduces the cognitive load on the user, leading to a more satisfying shopping experience and a higher likelihood of completing a purchase.
→Prioritized and elevated vital price, deals, shipping, and stock information to help users feel more confident in their purchasing decisions
→Introduced content flyout sections for product details, fit, and return info to reduce hesitation and abandonment
→Updated photo grid lets product and lifestyle images be seen above the fold on desktop
(06)
Creating a best in class predictive and intuitive search experience
I used this user journey to create a common understanding of desired search functionality between our team and the client. Highlights of the experience include:
→Custom experience based on your search history
→Suggested terms and products for less user typing and potential misspelling
→Details for all edge case scenarios
(07)
Using product recommendations to get users to product pages faster
Snapshots of the designs above show key features of the site search experience:
→Recommended products let users jump directly to the product detail page, reducing potential drop-off points in the shopping journey
→Additional popular search terms provided for broad searches
→Logic designed to help give edge case misspellings and empty searches better recommendations and paths forward to avoid dead ends
(08)
New components designed to elevate performance tech and speak to new audiences
We used new homepage and landing page components to elevate newer product ranges and categories.
I used the featured category (shown at the top) to elevate seasonal callouts (i.e. boots in the winter, running in the summer).
The additional components focused on introducing quickly scannable category callouts with a focus on differentiated photography to drive engagement with a more active audience.
(09)
We delivered a set of goal driven design improvements being developed and implemented incrementally
The final deliverables helped:
→Reduce friction through streamlined wayfinding and search
→Streamline the users journey to get to a purchasing decision quicker
→Build trust and enhance decision-making by elevating critical information
→Push digital design experience forward to better align with desired target market
