Holiday Gift Guide 2020 & 2021
I was the lead designer for the digital gift guide from 2019-2021. What was always a significant undertaking, proved to be the most challenging for the 2020-2021 holiday seasons. Given the state of the world, the consumer and company at large placed an even greater focus and dependence on the digital channel. Thoughtful and strategic planning and partnering with multiple internal and external counterparts enabled our team to offer a more personalized, innovative and human-centered product. Additionally, user testing year after year helped inform and improve designs for an optimal shopping experience.
My Involvement
Market research, brainstorm, partner with multiple counterparts to develop marketing/product/design strategy
Wireframe/site map
Art direct internal & external photo studios remotely; coordinate successful product hand-off, ideate all creative direction, create documentation for art direction, direct & collaborate with photographers/stylists
Design desktop/mobile pages
Partner with product/development teams to QA test, build & launch experience
Present final work to business counterparts & leadership for review
Partner with UX to create & conduct user tests
Aggregate user testing feedback and create a deck to share out
Partner with Digital Analytics to collect site data
The gift guide quiz was an added layer of complexity and innovation that was years in the making. My team initially designed a manually-built quiz experience for the 2019 Spring Mood campaign. Following its launch, we conducted user testing and leveraged the learnings to help inform and guide the design and build for this second iteration. Ultimately, my team achieved a personalized, engaging and dynamic product that yielded an 86% completion rate from over 5 million guests.
The unsung hero in the design process is without a doubt, user testing. As previously mentioned, I work with a UX partner to create a script and plan a timeline to deploy testing to at least 10 desktop and 10 mWeb users. During the holiday season, we strategically test at two different points to capture the behavior of guests—Black Friday weekend and the week prior to Christmas. After collecting and reviewing all user feedback, I aggregate my notes to create a summarized deck of takeaways and opportunities to share with my internal team, business counterparts and leadership. From there, we strategize and prioritize how and when to implement crucial learnings.
