A set of project principles
Through a process of collaboration, we initiated the creation of a unified visual language and a library of interface patterns. The team can now repeat and scale this process.
- Client
- High-End Department Store Chain
- Sector
- Retail
- Duration
- Three months
- What we did
Like many large e–commerce retailers, our client had a range of digital products of varying age and polish: a traditional desktop website, a basic mobile site, and native apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android. These products lacked a cohesive design language, and to update any one of them would be a long, arduous process. This is frustrating, both for the teams working on these products, not to mention end users.
Early in our engagement, we recognised that a shiny set of deliverables – whilst alluring – would have very little impact on the organisation’s long-term capacity to deliver user–centered design. Instead, we adopted the role of a coach, working within the product teams, immersed in their environment every day. Our goal was to help build the team’s internal design capacity, confidence and culture.
It was our mission to make sure that we transferred design skills and practices to the team so that they could work independently. During one of our final product demos, I sat back and watched the team deliver a compelling story about how the new product was going to improve the lives of their customers, and I knew the future of this team was in safe hands.
The Results
A toolkit of methods
Working together on a typical user journey, we gave the team a toolkit of methods that they can use to deliver better, faster, and more effective products for their customers.
A confident and proactive team
After our collaborative exercises, the designers and developers were better equipped to confidently tackle ongoing challenges.
The Full Story
How do you provide long term value to an in-house team?
Instead of commissioning Clearleft to deliver yet another product, or redesign an existing service, our client asked us to work closely with their internal teams to help them work in a faster, more collaborative manner, with greater empathy for customer’s needs and goals. We helped the product teams embrace techniques around multi–disciplinary collaboration and the benefits of iterative delivery through learning.
How do you set a team on a new, user-focused trajectory?
A Clearleft team of UX, UI, content and front-end development experts worked on–site for an intense three-month period of collaboration. Our goal was to build the confidence and capabilities of the teams to operate in a rapid, yet rewarding manner and place customers at the heart of the design process.
Operating as a single, cross–functional team, we collaborated on user-focused activities like persona generation, customer journey mapping and content prioritisation. By the end of our engagement, we translated these learnings into a set of project principles, a unified visual language and a library of interface patterns that would help underpin a new responsive offering.
By working in a lightweight, nimble way, using repeatable techniques that could be reproduced and scaled to the wider organisation, Clearleft provided the team with tangible techniques and a springboard to deliver better, faster, and more effective products for their customers.