People, Not PercentagesResearch & Design For Cross-Channel Experiences

by Allan Kempson, Nikki Easterday, and Stuart Maxwell

presented by Stuart Maxwell, Lead Information Architect, REI @stumax, turninggrille.com Slides: bit.ly/peoplenotpercentages

Austin buys a tentPart One

Everyone, meet Austin.

Austin is going backpacking and wants to buy a new tent.

He starts looking for tents online.

Austin goes to the closest store.

Austin finally talks to an REI employee.

The employee saves the day!!

How can we make this better?

This is an information space.

People, not percentages.

A process for designPart 2

We started as a specialty retailer.

But we started to act like a Big Box retailer.

We need to get back to our roots.

Allan Kempson Manager, Customer Experience Research and Design (CX)

Nikki Easterday Experience Design Manager, Store Design and Visual Merchandising (SDVM)

Meet Allan and Nikki.

Store Design / Visual Merchandising

Customer Experience Research

Physical Architects

Retail Operations

Store Employees

Merchants

Digital Retail

Outdoor Adventure & Programs

Senior Leadership

Stakeholders for designing a physical space

The processPart Two

1. Stakeholder interviews

2a. Quantitative customer research

2b. Qualitative customer research

3a. Affinity diagramming workshops Phase one: store staff

3a. Affinity diagramming workshops Phase two: HQ stakeholders

4. Allan presents research findings to Nikki

5. Architect Design Development (but first study all the things)

CX research

Stakeholder research and requirements

6. Share with leadership; get their input

7. Refine

8a. Build a low-fi prototype and iterate

8b. It’s messy.

8c. It gets worse.

8d. It gets better.

8z. It gets done..

9. Bring in-store employees and customers to test

10. Iterate again

11. Build in a pilot store (It gets messy again).

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

12. More research

13. Iterate and continue to refine for more stores

Findings and actions takenPart Three

1 Finding Why people come to the store

75 - 88% of customers start shopping online

Customers visit a store to touch, feel, and sense

Customers come to the store to get questions answered

1 Solution Self-Service Education

Experience the product

Promote conversation through experience

Finding A hard time finding

2

Customers had to wander the gondolas

Solution Activity-based product display

2

We flipped the taxonomy

CAMP SHOP

TENTS STOVES COOK GEAR LIGHTING

CAMPINGBACKPACKING

CAMPINGBACKPACKING

CAMPINGBACKPACKING

CAMPINGBACKPACKING

CAMP SHOP

CAMPING BACKPACKING

TENTSSTOVES

COOK GEARLIGHTING

TENTSSTOVES

COOK GEARLIGHTING

Visual wayfinding

AFTER

Visual wayfinding

3 Finding Decision Trees

Solution Decision Path

3

Solution Decision Path

3

And it works!

What we learnedPart 4

You can’t empathize with a statistic

We need to work hard and fast to understand the customer

Intellectual needs vs. sensing needs

We need to rethink our taxonomies

Involve everybody in the process

Involving everyone helps you as much as them

We framed the experience with objective measures

We brought clarity through a customer-focused understanding of the experience

Where do we go from here?

The challenge for Digital Retail

Take what we learned and move forward

1 Invest in mixed-methods customer research

Take what we learned and move forward

1 2 Involve everyone in everything

Invest in mixed-methods customer research

Take what we learned and move forward

1 2 3 Focus on people, not percentages

Involve everyone in everything

Invest in mixed-methods customer research

Take what we learned and move forward

Thanks!by Allan Kempson, Nikki Easterday, and Stuart Maxwell

presented by Stuart Maxwell, Lead Information Architect, REI; @stumax, turninggrille.com

Special thanks to: Mahsino Blamoh, Jordan Cordas, Louise Maxwell

Slides: bit.ly/peoplenotpercentages All images ©2016 Recreational Equipment, Inc.

Discussion

The cutting room floor

We go backpacking!!We go backpacking!!