Officeworks Homescreen
Officeworks is a leading office supply and stationary retailer in Australia. As part of their product roadmap, they wanted to introduce a personalised experience through a home screen. The app hadn’t been updated in a while and it was behind compared to other popular retail apps in the market.
Based on analytics, the app users knew what they wanted when browsing and when they were in the app, they were there to make that purchase.
This post highlights the discovery, define and design process.
Role
Senior Product Designer - contract
Squad
Mobile app team
Company
Officeworks
Year
2019
The Process
Competitor analysis
Old landing screen
Competitor Analysis: I explored popular retail and travel apps, highlighting personalized and seasonal content features. Sharing these insights with stakeholders helped secure their buy-in.
Research and Analytics: I conducted baseline usability testing with 5 users using Askable to find Officeworks App users, as there were no prior studies. The landing screen, which required users to navigate 5-6 subcategory levels to find products, was difficult to browse. Unlike standard retail apps that offer curated sections for quick browsing, our app lacked an intuitive starting point.
Store Visits: Equipped with gift cards as incentives, I visited an Officeworks store to gather customer feedback on our landing screen. It was insightful to speak with diverse customers in-store.
User Behavior: Users spent about 20 seconds on the landing screen, with 23% of the 3000 visits going directly to the search function, indicating a lack of browsing experience. Analytics and user comments showed that most users visited the app with a specific purchase in mind.
Ideation Workshop
I organized and facilitated a workshop for homescreen ideation, involving 22 participants. I coordinated with stakeholders, arranged lightning talks, and ensured speakers were prepared. The session fostered keen collaboration and contributions to app development.
In the session, we had a warm up activity and a crazy 8 exercise.
After the crazy 8, I asked the participants to pair up and work on one design that they think would work or that they really like. Once that was done, we discussed those as a group.
The workshop went on for 2.5 hours. After the workshop, I collected all the amazing ideas from the room and worked on the vision piece.
Design
The research and the ideas everyone came up with helped inform the design direction for the homescreen.
Reflection 🥸
I didn’t get to finished the project because I was at the end of my contract. However, Officeworks had implemented a similar design to the vision I worked on. I was happy that my work contributed to the current version.