Solution

The solution was to create a responsive e-commerce experience that would span a client's retail, customer care, and customer channels. The end result was an online experience where everyone sees the same thing, and the overall customer experience is improved due to the reduced confusion between the client's employees and customers.

Design process

The design process we followed began with a planning and prioritization phase, followed by sketching initial designs, holding collaborative design sessions, creating wireframes, and iterating as needed. We used a scaled agile methodology that allowed us to refactor and create new pages every two weeks.

Planning and prioritization

Before each design sprint it was my responsibility as the creative team project manager to meet with the product management team to determine which elements of the user experience would be developed next, taking into account the overall vision for the Digital Omni Channel Platform, as well as our resource capacity from a design perspective. 

Once the required pages and functionality requirements were determined and discussed, I would meet with the design team to determine how each page in our flow would be designed and determine if any new interactions or design patterns were needed. This process usually entailed looking at competitor websites and other e-commerce sites online to determine what was being done for certain interactions across multiple sites. We’d also look up best practices and then come to a consensus on what interactions and page designs we preferred before designing our own interactions and pages that would match our project’s design language.

Prototyping

I was heavily involved in the prototyping process. I worked with fellow designers from Fjord to create an Axure Prototype that was interactive and followed Google's Material Design methodology. As I worked, I incorporated the style guide designs that were created by the visual designer into the final prototype.

What I learned

Always voice your ideas

I learned that voicing my ideas on how to improve a design or how to create a design solution is something I needed to do more. I had been holding back since I wasn’t sure if doing something would be a good idea, but the only way to see if it’s a good idea is to share my thoughts. Once I began to share my ideas more, I learned which ideas the team preferred, and how to build upon those same ideas to create a better experience for our end users.

Have reasons to persuade people to follow your thinking

I learned that the best way to convince a client or stakeholder to go with one of my ideas, especially if they’re from your own company, is to have a valid reason. It’s also important to share your reason with your fellow designers so they can support you and your idea. This came up in situations where the client was requesting features for our product that I knew didn't add any value to the customer experience. The features would actually make the experience worse for customers rather than making it better. Knowing this, I came up with several reasons not to include the features, told my manager to make sure they agreed with me, and then shared my ideas with the client to persuade them to not add the features they wanted.