Checking In for a Personalized Experience
Role
UX Architect
Market
B2B, Direct to Consumer
Activities
Heuristic Analysis, Competitive Benchmarking, User Research, Information Architecture, Visual Design, User Testing, Change Management
Impact
Over 40% reduction in zero result searches with revised search
Over 26% increase in average order amount
Increase of search efficacy after integrating content search
Project description
Project description
Project description
Timeline
Timeline
Timeline
This project began its extended Research Phase in 2018 with me leading a multiple session focus group to collect baseline user expectations and insights, followed by ten qualitative interview sessions with users across the wide spectrum of American Hotel Register customer groups. We also shadowed customer service representatives to get a sense of the current state of the experience and where the most evident painpoints exist within the existing CX. Leveraging this information, I build out a dataset with visualizations that allowed us to spot overarching thematic correlations within the feedback gathered in our research phase. This presented us to key areas of focus, targeted information for personas, and areas to be cognizant of during our Change Managment phase prior to launch.
This project began its extended Research Phase in 2018 with me leading a multiple session focus group to collect baseline user expectations and insights, followed by ten qualitative interview sessions with users across the wide spectrum of American Hotel Register customer groups. We also shadowed customer service representatives to get a sense of the current state of the experience and where the most evident painpoints exist within the existing CX. Leveraging this information, I build out a dataset with visualizations that allowed us to spot overarching thematic correlations within the feedback gathered in our research phase. This presented us to key areas of focus, targeted information for personas, and areas to be cognizant of during our Change Managment phase prior to launch.
This project began its extended Research Phase in 2018 with me leading a multiple session focus group to collect baseline user expectations and insights, followed by ten qualitative interview sessions with users across the wide spectrum of American Hotel Register customer groups. We also shadowed customer service representatives to get a sense of the current state of the experience and where the most evident painpoints exist within the existing CX. Leveraging this information, I build out a dataset with visualizations that allowed us to spot overarching thematic correlations within the feedback gathered in our research phase. This presented us to key areas of focus, targeted information for personas, and areas to be cognizant of during our Change Managment phase prior to launch.
Project Goals
Project Goals
Project Goals
American Hotel Register needed to modernize their commerce platform, consolidate their catalog data and content supply chain, and overhall their design system for a cohesive brand experience for an omnichannel audience of this iconic hotel supply brand. The massive size of the AHR catalog meant that clean product data and a search feature that strongly leveraged this data was paramont in serving most of of the purchasing personas for AHR. We also wanted to be mindful of the self-service aspect for individual locations to manage their business with AHR directly within the portal, lowering the cost to service these customers and provide incentives for these businesses to work with AHR for their hospitality needs.
American Hotel Register needed to modernize their commerce platform, consolidate their catalog data and content supply chain, and overhall their design system for a cohesive brand experience for an omnichannel audience of this iconic hotel supply brand. The massive size of the AHR catalog meant that clean product data and a search feature that strongly leveraged this data was paramont in serving most of of the purchasing personas for AHR. We also wanted to be mindful of the self-service aspect for individual locations to manage their business with AHR directly within the portal, lowering the cost to service these customers and provide incentives for these businesses to work with AHR for their hospitality needs.
American Hotel Register needed to modernize their commerce platform, consolidate their catalog data and content supply chain, and overhall their design system for a cohesive brand experience for an omnichannel audience of this iconic hotel supply brand. The massive size of the AHR catalog meant that clean product data and a search feature that strongly leveraged this data was paramont in serving most of of the purchasing personas for AHR. We also wanted to be mindful of the self-service aspect for individual locations to manage their business with AHR directly within the portal, lowering the cost to service these customers and provide incentives for these businesses to work with AHR for their hospitality needs.
Process
Process
Process
Research & Planning
Research & Planning
Research & Planning
American Hotel showed no hesitancy to dive into the research in an effort to shed some light on their customers and where to segment users based on their goals. We engaged with internal stakeholders, customer service representatives, and qualitative interviews with customers. I conducted a set of three focus groups with end-users to get open feedback on real-life use cases that increase friction for users conducting business digitally. This research was then broken down into data points that formed thematic correlations when analyzed. These themes allowed us to build a narrative around the most effective ways to enhance the customer experience. Personalization and search were key areas to focus on when determining strategy. A personalized experience needs a person to consider. Personas were defined to determine what features held value to customer segments who were in charge of making purchasing decisions. We also built data around the customer journey for each persona and at what point in these journeys was it essential to meet the user’s needs to enable conversion.
American Hotel showed no hesitancy to dive into the research in an effort to shed some light on their customers and where to segment users based on their goals. We engaged with internal stakeholders, customer service representatives, and qualitative interviews with customers. I conducted a set of three focus groups with end-users to get open feedback on real-life use cases that increase friction for users conducting business digitally. This research was then broken down into data points that formed thematic correlations when analyzed. These themes allowed us to build a narrative around the most effective ways to enhance the customer experience. Personalization and search were key areas to focus on when determining strategy. A personalized experience needs a person to consider. Personas were defined to determine what features held value to customer segments who were in charge of making purchasing decisions. We also built data around the customer journey for each persona and at what point in these journeys was it essential to meet the user’s needs to enable conversion.
American Hotel showed no hesitancy to dive into the research in an effort to shed some light on their customers and where to segment users based on their goals. We engaged with internal stakeholders, customer service representatives, and qualitative interviews with customers. I conducted a set of three focus groups with end-users to get open feedback on real-life use cases that increase friction for users conducting business digitally. This research was then broken down into data points that formed thematic correlations when analyzed. These themes allowed us to build a narrative around the most effective ways to enhance the customer experience. Personalization and search were key areas to focus on when determining strategy. A personalized experience needs a person to consider. Personas were defined to determine what features held value to customer segments who were in charge of making purchasing decisions. We also built data around the customer journey for each persona and at what point in these journeys was it essential to meet the user’s needs to enable conversion.
Design & Prototyping
Design & Prototyping
Design & Prototyping
The new American Hotel experience benefitted from the solid foundation of data acquired during our primary research phase. From a polished search experience that anticipated user needs, to personalized content and features that mirrored the concierge-level service their customers were accustomed to from actual sales representatives.
The new American Hotel experience benefitted from the solid foundation of data acquired during our primary research phase. From a polished search experience that anticipated user needs, to personalized content and features that mirrored the concierge-level service their customers were accustomed to from actual sales representatives.
The new American Hotel experience benefitted from the solid foundation of data acquired during our primary research phase. From a polished search experience that anticipated user needs, to personalized content and features that mirrored the concierge-level service their customers were accustomed to from actual sales representatives.
Development & Implementation
Development & Implementation
Development & Implementation
The design team worked closely with the front-end development teams within the agency as well as the in-house development team at AHR. By conducting weekly design reviews directly with the development team, we relayed the reasoning behind some of the more complex design flows so that the importance was carried through to implementation. We also worked with the back-end team to streamline the product model being fed into SAP Hybris so that our UI was ready and optimized for the data being presented from PIM.
The design team worked closely with the front-end development teams within the agency as well as the in-house development team at AHR. By conducting weekly design reviews directly with the development team, we relayed the reasoning behind some of the more complex design flows so that the importance was carried through to implementation. We also worked with the back-end team to streamline the product model being fed into SAP Hybris so that our UI was ready and optimized for the data being presented from PIM.
The design team worked closely with the front-end development teams within the agency as well as the in-house development team at AHR. By conducting weekly design reviews directly with the development team, we relayed the reasoning behind some of the more complex design flows so that the importance was carried through to implementation. We also worked with the back-end team to streamline the product model being fed into SAP Hybris so that our UI was ready and optimized for the data being presented from PIM.
Testing & Optimization
Testing & Optimization
Testing & Optimization
Usability testing sessions were conducted by presenting production-quality prototypes to two groups of five users and having these users complete three tasks. Time to completion, success/failure rate, and cursor activity was monitor to gauge the efficacy of the designs. All three metrics showed improvements, and a few minor areas of improvement were identifed for iterative design during our maintenance phase. Additionally, I was asked to conduct two change management sessions with AHR executives in which the experience enhancements, changes in the content supply chain, and other key business implications were demonstrated to the team for them to pass along to their individual teams. This allowed executives to ask questions and gain a full understanding of the scope of changes to the end user experience prior to launch so that a universal messaging plan could be carried out post-launch to mitigate confusion.
Usability testing sessions were conducted by presenting production-quality prototypes to two groups of five users and having these users complete three tasks. Time to completion, success/failure rate, and cursor activity was monitor to gauge the efficacy of the designs. All three metrics showed improvements, and a few minor areas of improvement were identifed for iterative design during our maintenance phase. Additionally, I was asked to conduct two change management sessions with AHR executives in which the experience enhancements, changes in the content supply chain, and other key business implications were demonstrated to the team for them to pass along to their individual teams. This allowed executives to ask questions and gain a full understanding of the scope of changes to the end user experience prior to launch so that a universal messaging plan could be carried out post-launch to mitigate confusion.
Usability testing sessions were conducted by presenting production-quality prototypes to two groups of five users and having these users complete three tasks. Time to completion, success/failure rate, and cursor activity was monitor to gauge the efficacy of the designs. All three metrics showed improvements, and a few minor areas of improvement were identifed for iterative design during our maintenance phase. Additionally, I was asked to conduct two change management sessions with AHR executives in which the experience enhancements, changes in the content supply chain, and other key business implications were demonstrated to the team for them to pass along to their individual teams. This allowed executives to ask questions and gain a full understanding of the scope of changes to the end user experience prior to launch so that a universal messaging plan could be carried out post-launch to mitigate confusion.
