Taking design out of the design team
This article is taken from a talk I gave at the IxDA meet-up in Bangalore back in May 2018 when I was selling furniture.
UrbanLadder was known as a design-led brand when compared to its competitors. And this was achieved because Good Design was no longer restricted to the “Design team”. There were 3 important factors that led to this.
1. Compassion
Compassion towards the users need has to be the binding force. When this is being practiced, the nature of conversation changes from Inside-Out to Outside-in.
Everyone who joined UL would go through various inductions including a Delivery experience induction. Where we would spend a day or two going on deliveries and experiencing that. Its safe to say UL’s delivery experience always ranked as a top factor of customer retention.
When Tech, Product, Design and everyone else participated in activities like these, we started sharing a unified compassion for the users and their experiences. This shared understanding helped us build products and services that our users loved.
Compassion leads to Synergy.
2. Constratints
It is a cliche to say that constraints are a boon. But it IS a cliche because it IS true. Constraints help teams think out of the box. Constratints help us innovate. And so we must develop the culture of embracing constraints.
At UL, we noticed that a bunch of our user segment started using iPads to browse the website. We were surprised as the customer base accessing our website on tablets grew. Untill then we did not have a dedicated iPad App and would simply show the app designed for the iPhone at 2x scale. Which is why while the web-browsing on iPad grew, our app uninstall rates on iPad grew too. We did not have either the design or the tech bandwidth to make a complete iPad app. This constraint led us to design a hybrid app where we took elements of iPhone app and innovated on design and created a version that looked and felt as if it was designed for the iPad. Our iPad app usage improved as did overall conversion.
Constraints lead to innovation.
3. Consistency
Focus on Omni-channel experience grew around 2015–16 in the Indian Startup ecosystem. While we tried to figure out what that meant for us, we looked at the best example there was to learn from/take cues from — Disney! As a brand, they ensured that level of experience at every touchpoint was consistent. Right from the tone-of-voice to the visual aesthetics to spatial experiences and all products.
This lead to the design team’s focus on ensuring the brand experience was evident in all the designs. We worked closely with the marketing and creative and ops teams and ensured that all our touch points reverberated the same message.
When we decided to venture into Experience centres, we were moving from a digital — only to a brick and mortar experience space. And something interesting happened. The conversations between the digital design and the store visual merchandising team increased. We ensured the Experience centres looked and felt like an extension of our Website/Apps and vice-versa. Parallels were drawn between — the layout of the stores and the navigation of the website, the images used on the web and the aesthetics of the store etc. The posters used in the store were consistent with the banners used on the website. The typography, colour palette and even the iconography were consistent. It did not feel as if we copied things but more like an extension of each other. Certain design calls taken in the store also influenced the visual experience on the website. All of this was geared towards ensuring that our customers felt comfortable irrespective of where they shopped..online or offline. Trust on the brand always featured high in UL’s customers with the highest NPS rating in the country.
Consistency leads to Trust.
