Background
The challenge was to create a prototype that envisioned the future of Elkjøp omnichannel retailing. Our goal was to help Elkjøp express what their omnichannel experience could be like in the near future—in a highly tangible, visual way. A tool was needed to spread the omnichannel vision and help inspire champions within the company for a modern, customer-centric approach to retailing.
As the UX Designer on the project, it was my job to define what and how we would prototype to bring the new omnichannel strategy to life. Together with a small multi-disciplinary team I conducted extensive research; created customer profiles and journeys, user scenarios, storyboards; wrote scripts; produced a photo shoot; designed a reimagined, omnichannel optimized ecommerce prototype site; and finally a special website to present what became the delivery—a photo story combined with interactive flows.
If you’re antsy, you can skip ahead and view the final prototype here: http://theworldloves.com/elkjop (password:omnistory), or continue reading to see all the fun stuff along the way.
Research
We began a rapid and deep dive into the world of omnichannel retailing and the connected consumer today. We armed ourselves with knowledge about current and developing technologies and had a look at how other major retailers are evolving in the omnichannel space. Concurrently we studied commerce from the perspective of the customer.
Unsurprisingly, new technologies and the hyper-connected consumers of today are enabling great opportunities to connect the digital and physical environments in meaningful ways. In an exploration in to the tools available for retailers to facilitate this merge, we learned about: in-store mapping, mobile capabilities with beacons/NFC/Wi-Fi, mobile POS systems, digital displays, inventory visibility, improved delivery options, user-generated review systems, social loyalty programs, data optimization for personalization, augmented reality experiences and ideas around the connected store.
Looking from the consumer perspective—how have new technologies and increasing mobility affected their purchase journey? What constitutes a seamless experience for connected consumers? Key areas identified in our research as possible answers to these questions included: ability to buy in one channel and get product in another, mobile usage in store, local searches, mobile discounts and rewards, mobile payment options, social loyalty programs, visibility into inventory, improved delivery, personalized customer service, easier returns, fellow customers’ ratings and reviews, using mobile for way finding in store, and product curating.
Ideation
Now we had done extensive research about what exactly omnichannel is and had an understanding for the technical possibilities and the opportunities they presented. Omnichannel is a combination of strategic endeavors that a company undertakes across all of their channels to provide their customers with a holistic, fluid experience. To actually visualize, or prototype, an omnichannel experience is to visualize how and where customers interact with the retailer or brand throughout their purchase journey. Thus we needed to uncover and illustrate the context and the touch points that consumers experience when they’re in the process of making a purchase. We needed to create a story about the connected customer journey.
Concept
So we set out to tell a story about an omnichannel purchase journey through the eyes of a customer. Storytelling takes many forms these days—from film and print to immersive experiences. We decided an interactive photo story would be the best way to integrate a contextual, visual narrative of a customer moving through their journey with clickable design prototypes portraying a future concept of Elkjøp’s digital presence. We began to script, storyboard and plan a photo shoot. A digital-savvy Millennial named Carl became our star and he was going to buy himself a new juice machine.
The Prototype – Photo Shoot
A motley crew was gathered and we took to the streets (quite literally for a couple scenes) for the photo shoot. I had lots of fun on my directorial début making sure we got the scenery and the shots just right for our photo story.
The Prototype – Wireframes
We were designing the new Elkjøp website prototype across several different devices—including a smart watch and a large digital display—so we needed to ensure that the design remained consistent across all of these unique screens so that customers would always feel it was a familiar, connected platform, even when they were viewing a digital screen in store. We ended up creating a modular system that enabled us to adapt the design accordingly.
The Prototype – Wireframes
Since this was a just prototype, we were only designing select screens that we had determined to be key to our customer journey about Carl buying a juice machine. And those screens would be designed for the device we had mapped to the context assumed in our customer journey. We were designing a shop grid in desktop, a product detail page for tablet, an order history in mobile and so on. It was an interesting design process and certainly a challenging one at that because we had to think through a complete system while only actually designing bits and pieces of it. At a macro-level it was pretty tricky work but a lot of fun as well because you can enjoy a little more freedom in your design when you don’t need to illustrate every single state and interaction.
The Prototype – Visual Design
The Digital Designer on the project had his work cut out for him. With trends and advances in visual design progressing so incredibly fast these days, how do you begin to project and define how a brand should look in 18 months, 2 years, 3 years? It’s not an easy thing to do. But the old saying “less is more” has absolutely been proving true in respect to visual UI design in the last couple of years. Design is becoming increasingly invisible. Hence our magical Digital Designer overhauled the brand guidelines—scaling back overwhelming colors, creating softer lines and generally removing a lot of visual effects. These new guidelines were thoughtfully applied throughout the new UX for a fresh, beautiful and modern digital experience.
The Prototype – Interactive Photo Story
Finally it came time to tie together all the parts of the prototype to tell the customer story and bring the omnichannel vision to life. I wrote a narrative for the photos and short film clips we had taken to portray Carl’s purchase journey, and we built a website that enabled viewers to navigate through the photo story and the various design prototypes. The outcome was an immersive experience that could be distributed throughout the Elkjøp organization to help everyone understand the potential and benefits of implementing an omnichannel strategy. Seen above are a few shots from the photo story. The full and final delivery can be found here: http://theworldloves.com/elkjop * (password: omnistory)
*For the best experience, please view on an iPad.
Takeaway
Learning from this project:
On managing ambiguity – I will say that this was a weird project from day one. There was no brief for this project. All we knew was that we needed to create a prototype that envisioned how Elkjøp could implement an omnichannel strategy in the near future. With absolutely no specific requirements regarding what the prototype should include or even what form it should take, and no clear project structure—we embarked on an adventure to define what omnichannel should be for Elkjøp and figured out a way to help them visualize it. All projects come with a certain level of uncertainty, at least in the beginning, but never had I been confronted with anything like this one before. I was challenged to use much of the arsenal in my UX toolbox and to practice the full design process. Through the process we began to minimize the ambiguity of the project and it turned out to be a fantastic learning experience. Hopefully this write-up shed some light on how we actually went from zero to a new omnichannel strategy prototype.
