From Touchscreen Kiosk to Web >
Case Study
Art Director 2000-2004 | Creative Director 2004-2006
Since 1991 MarCole had been the undisputed leader in providing turnkey, interactive systems for in-store kiosk Gift Registry and Electronic Catalog solutions along with a full range of back-end management resources. In 1998 MarCole introduces the world’s first web-based gift registry system that combines both in-store and Internet systems together using a single database.
I am responsible for the information architecture, interaction design, visual design, web-copy, and front-end programming for five web apps on both kiosks and computers.
1. Overview
When I joined MarCole the company was in the process of bringing her C++ systems to the Web. They had started converting their Gift Registry system into HTML and Java for one of their major clients; after the initial launch they had to fix some critical issues:
– The web app had been coded for a specific client, it could not be easily adapted to all their other clients’ branding requirements.
– The front-end code had been generated in Dreamweaver, simple layout changes took days to implement.
– A marketing agency had designed a ten-step workflow to complete the online registration, it heavily impacted the conversion rate: – 60% of site-visitors were abandoning the registration pages.
MarCole’s major client had started considering other vendors for their online presence.
2. Goals
Understand the dynamic nature of the company’s vision, her products, her customers and consumers expectations, while assessing the technological choices and direction. As a “UX team of One” optimize limited resources by wearing different hats (Information Architect, Interaction Designer, Visual Designer, Front-End Developer, and Project Manager) and coming up with a process that would incorporate the user experience into the software development process.
3. Actions
– Simplified GR Profile workflow by reducing the number of required steps from ten to three.
– Completely re-designed the interface to meet user expectations while leveraging the majority of the business logic.
– Made recommendations to modify the database tables to simplify data structure.
– Added new features to satisfy users needs, i.e. gift wrapping options, multiple shipping, guest password, etc.
– Created intuitive workflows for other back end management applications that required minimal training (Data Work, Catalog Work, Registry Manager, and Hosted Solution)
– Hand-coded pages to separate the visual layer from HTML, wrote clean W3 compliant code.
– Created a modular framework that allowed to share re-usable components across multiple apps.
– Designed a flexible grid that allowed clients to easily customize it and brand it.
4. Results
– Improved users’ satisfaction and increased conversion rate to + 80%.
– Successfully met customers’ needs.
– Reduced internal costs by saving development time (re-usable components).
– Effort resulted in saving the company’s major account, Linen-n-Things, and led to the acquisition of new accounts (Neiman Marcus, Sur La Table among others) that increased revenue almost 200%.
5. Award
5th Annual Kiosk Magazine Awards, 2004.
“Gift RegistryWorks: Best Interface Design Award Runner-Up for integrating the complexity of many requirements into one single, user-friendly interface that provides an excellent blend of consistent information architecture as well as interaction design with easy access to information.”
SAMPLES
Online Gift Registry Consumer Facing:
In-Store Kiosk Gift Registry Consumer Facing:
Data Manager Admin Tool:
Client Setup Tool:
Registry Manager Admin Tool:
Links to HTML Pages
Online Gift Registry Work:
Kiosk Gift Registry Work:
