Moving to a New UX One Page at a Time
I spend a lot of time speaking to customers about re-freshing their customer-facing Web experience. A hot topic is rich internet applications (RIA), including things like drag-and-drop check-out, embedded video, rich product imagery, etc.
An objection I hear quite frequently, especially when discussing Silverlight-based shopping experiences, is that “we don’t think our customers are ready for that experience”. That is a hugely important consideration. Persona-based analysis of your customer base will likely indicate there is a mix of customers hungry for a richer shopping experience, and those resistant to any change that could impact their ability to simply browse your digital catalog. Deep persona development aided by A/B testing is a good way to ferret out preferences like these.
One way to deal with this issue is to allow customers to dip their toe in the water and measure feedback. Newegg.com has a great example of this with a Silverlight-based buying control they have deployed. What is great about the experience is that it is optional, but proves out its value on its own. The page allows deep visualization of the products (digital cameras in this case) and a slider to narrow or expand product ranges.
Give it a test drive here:
http://promotions.newegg.com/silverlight/dc/index.html
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About domc
I am responsible for eCommerce and cross-channel retailing for Microsoft’s Retail Industry Team. In this capacity, I have worked with many global retailers to assess eCommerce and cross-channel retailing strategies and how technology and business processes can be used to accomplish strategic initiatives.
I leverage my background in retail supply chain and consumer experience technology to align retailers’ customer facing application portfolios with the realities of retail enterprise applications and enterprise data paradigms.
Prior to joining Microsoft, I held positions at Oracle Retail, Retek, and Accenture. At Oracle Retail, I was a product manager responsible for supply chain execution systems. While at Retek I held functional architecture responsibilities for Retek’s supply chain execution systems, including integration with other ERP functional areas such as merchandising, financials, order management and point-of-sale. In my role at Accenture, I was responsible for leading custom development and implementation teams for large retail ERP projects, including direct-to-consumer operations. I have been quoted in industry publications and have lectured at a variety of venues.
My retail solutions experience includes verticals such as hypermarket, grocery, specialty, soft lines, C-store and hard lines. This experience included traditional brick-and-mortar as well as multi-channel fulfillment models.
