SnowBird Update: Envisioning a next-generation retail experience
jennifer January 26th, 2009
Now that our commerce research phase has been completed, we’ve officially kicked off the envisioning phase. We’ll be taking a funnel approach where we will be using a variety of brainstorming and envisioning methodologies to generate as many ideas as possible based our research findings. We’ll then go through a series of evaluating and iterating the ideas to narrow them down to the best solution. Lastly, we’ll envision the interaction design for the winning solution.
To get us started, we identified opportunity areas that derived from the research from both the customer and retailer’s perspective and held a variety of brainstorming sessions around the following:
The customer
• Finding the stuff I want
• Finding the stuff I can afford
• Being Social
• creating a continuous experience
• Brand & culture
The retailer
• Creating stickiness
• Leveraging multiple channels
• Offering a unique experience
• Giving salespeople a boost
• Using social possibilities
• Offering more than what’s in the store
This resulted in a pile of ideas. We then performed an affinity, which led us to idea groupings that we evaluated and iterated on.
More to come…
Entry Filed under: Case Study: The Wall, design
6 Comments Add your own
1. Scott | January 26th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Don’t forget the assets the customers may have with them. Additionally their emotions may vary throughout the sales life cycle… anticipation, excitement all the way to frustration or even anger. What are the opportunities to circumvent the process for buying customers?
2. jennifer | January 26th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Very good questions and observations. I like how you’re thinking about emotional assets in addition to the physical assets that customers might bring into the experience (purse, cell phone, other items of clothing, even friends). The emotional aspect is a large component and influencer of the purchasing process. We definitely plan to consider this when exploring solutions.
3. Scott | January 27th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Would you please describe in greater detail the “affinity” performance? Does this mean “hand it to the Creative Director?”
affinity |??finit?|
noun ( pl. -ties) (often affinity between/for/with)
a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something : he has an affinity for the music of Berlioz.
• a similarity of characteristics suggesting a relationship, esp. a resemblance in structure between animals, plants, or languages : a building with no affinity to contemporary architectural styles. See note at likeness .
• relationship, esp. by marriage as opposed to blood ties.
• chiefly Biochemistry the degree to which a substance tends to combine with another : the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen.
4. jennifer | January 27th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
An affinity is a method that we use often to help us identify patterns and opportunity areas. For example, the affinities we perform during most research phases begin with hundreds of painpoints and/or insights from users. We then go through a process to find similarities which lead to groupings, especially those that might not be initially obvious. The result often leads to a large collage of groupings that take over an entire wall, which allows us to see patterns and opportunities for design solutions.
For this project, we applied this method to our brainstorming concepts. We had hundreds of them. We sifted through them to find similarities and grouped them into a handful of opportunity areas and themes such as “collecting” or “publicizing”. The result was a list of opportunity areas in which to start developing solutions around.
5. Kevin Wong | January 27th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
The affinity exercise is also used to help bring a shared understanding that a group can agree upon. Because we are working with so many data points, each individual is left with their own interpretation on how these groupings are formed. By doing these activities as a group, especially with clients, we allow for multiple points of views and considerations to make the best decision for the project’s scope.
However, in this instance as Jennifer mentioned, the affinity exercise was used to group concept ideas that are more easily digestible. It helps bring small and big ideas together that solve for similar problems.
To Scott’s earlier mention of emotional assets, I think you’re on to something there. One thing that Larry Detris, one of the lead sales associates mentioned was that it’s all about excitement. If you can navigate a customer’s emotion from whatever their initial state is, into one where they are excited, then it becomes easier.
How do they create excitement? Through storytelling, videos, art and music. By looking into the social component of shopping, such as sharing photos of the last ski trip, as well as observing the impact of rich media playback in store (e.g. pro snowboarders jumping off a helicopter), we can start to imagine how we want to deliver the experience.
We’ll be posting additional videos shortly that communicate more of the things we’ve seen, heard and talked about.
6. Scott | January 27th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Thanks for discussing… I’m most interested to see the videos.
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