REI Engage: HCDE Capstone
Overview
For my final Capstone project in the HCDE department, I worked on a team of 4 women in a project sponsored by REI. The goal of the project was to improve customer engagement in their online store. From there, it was up to us to determine how that goal would be implemented.
Following user research, we decided on a feature called "Build My Trip", an interactive feature that offers the same level of in-store expertise to online customers. Many users shared with us that they value the knowledge that REI employees share with customers in store. However, the online shopping experience can feel challenging because shoppers are unable to leverage this unique customer service. The "Build My Trip" feature provides a suggested checklist for shoppers that is developed from their answers to a short questionnaire about their trip. This checklist also suggests preferred products to the customer based on the nature of their trip, providing a personalized online shopping experience.
“How might we engage customers by bringing expert knowledge online to create a personalized experience?”
The Process
Research
Competitive Analysis
Interviews
Personas
Ideation
Affinity Mapping
Brainstorming
Design
Sketching
Low-fidelity wireframing
User Flows
Prototyping
Evaluation
Usability Testing
My Role
I led the efforts in user research, usability testing, and the development of both our low- and high-fidelity prototypes.
User Research
In order to gain an understanding of current examples of online engagement, we began our research efforts with customer interviews. I developed a screener survey that asked participants about their current shopping behaviors, both online and in-store, as well as their relationships with brands and loyalty programs. We received 46 responses and later conducted 8 in-person interviews with participants that best fit our screener criteria. I prepared the interview questions and conducted each interview with our participants.
Usability Testing
Our team utilized Morae in our usability testing sessions, which each took place in the REI flagship store in downtown Seattle. I was the moderator for every session and I developed the tasks that each participant was asked to complete. Usability testing was conducted in two phases, with our prototype at varying levels of fidelity, in order to gain feedback early on in our design process, as well as to validate our final design. Overall, 8 usability studies were conducted.
Prototyping
I developed our low- and high-fidelity interactive prototypes using Axure. The low-fidelity prototype was designed in only black and white and had a sketched outline to emphasize to our study participants that we were in the early design phases of the process. Once we had settled on the user flows for the "Build My Trip" feature, my teammates developed the visual design elements in Sketch. I imported these high-fidelity designs into Axure and added interactive functionality so that the site appeared to be live for our usability studies.