Design Thinking.Lean

Overview

I have supported multiple teams while at Office Depot. This particular example comes from my time working on a Search & Product project. (The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Office Depot.)

Problem/Challenge 

Give users an "opportunity" to purchase Microsoft Office with the purchase of a new PC to increase the value of their computer and product capabilities. Business requested a more functional, user-centered version of the MVP solution that was tested and had shown positive results. 

Approach 

My approach was to focus on the omni-channel experience and use human-centered-design and to understand our users' current mental model. As I typically do, I began my design process which started with user research.

Design Thinking Process

I paid one of our stores a visit to get a better understanding for how our brick and mortar stores present, position and communicate Microsoft Office as an up-sell to potential customers. This helped me understand the current customer experience in the retail setting. Understanding how the visual system works, it made sense to keep the solution at the customers center visual field where the eye can see the most amount of details.  I later performed a competitive analysis and pattern audit to better understand the experience offered by the competition. I then spent time running unmoderated remote user tests on our competition to see how people engage with these different experiences. Next I created task flows while channeling our user personas before finally sketching out lo-fi paper prototypes.

Test.Collaborate.iterate

After collaborating with Stakeholders, Developers, Quality Assurance, Product Owner and Business Analysis I converted the paper sketches into a low-mid fidelity prototype. I ran a first click test to make sure users where going to know what to click, where to click and match there expectation with the design. This data point helped me gain insight and direction before going into high fidelity and prototyping state. 

Moving along to prototype 

Feeling good about the 80% score from our first click test, we moved into prototyping. After creating the prototype, I had users on usertesting.com who matched our persona test out the prototype and complete a task. We where looking out for users feedback and some not so obvious usability concerns to bubble to the top. 

Iterate & Collaborate

After having a few users interact with the prototype, I synthesize the information and go back to iterating, collaborating and searching for design inspiration. Design principles are my cornerstone for driving understanding, engagement and trust. For example, I took what I learned from the Order Effect and Fogg Behavior Model to arrange the different types of Microsoft Office solutions by logical order, for example B=MAT (Behavior = Motivation, Ability and Trigger.)

Results

The results from running first-click tests and usertesting.com tests showed that taking the time to understand the user paid off. The first-click tests showed 80% conversion, and usertesting.com gave us extremely positive qualitative results. The next step is to release our solution via A/B montage testing to see the quantitative real-world conversions.