La Mer - Client Engagement iPad Application

Challenge

Estée Lauder wanted to digitize their current paper-based retail materials used by their in-store Beauty Experts. Their goal was to keep human-to-human interaction with the support of a digital assistant to manage and engage clients.

Key Tasks

Worked closely with our internal pre-sales team
Led Co-creation sessions: Worked closely with clients to help shape an informed point of view and understand the current process
Conducted stakeholder and user interviews
Observational research at multiple La Mer retailers
Extracted insights and created experience principles
Led internal service mapping exercise
Collaborate closely Art Director
Lead usability session and present usability findings

Impact

Estée Lauder was very impressed with our insights and proof of concept. We were the team to go through from pre-sales to executing the final product.

Phase 1 will launch in September, released in North America, UK and 5 Travel Retail locations. We will use the data and analytics gathered to inform Phase 2.

UNDERSTAND: Observation Field Trip Research

As UX lead I led observational field research at 3 La Mer New York retailers. There were two experiences we needed to capture: Client Consultation and Shade Finder. I was a fully embedded researcher where participants weren’t aware that observation and research was being conducted. I also led guerrilla research in Hong Kong and Shanghai to understand their two biggest market: NA and HK/China.

UNDERSTAND: SERVICE MAP

I synthesized my research and outlined a draft service blueprint, directing another offshore UX designer for creating the service map. After mapping experiences for client consultation and shade finder, and guerrilla research, we were able to extract insights to formulate a design strategy.

DEFINE: STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS

Define and align on KPI’s w/ business, education and product stakeholders. These KPI’s came from the product owner and we verified them across all Business Units on feasibility.

Adoption rate : 70% of experts in pilot use the tool
0.5% increase in purchases across channels in doors with tool
15% of users access digital regimen brochure post consultation
Customer satisfaction improve by 7%

DEFINE: LED CO-CREATION SESSIONS

Part 1

Empathize with end-users (Beauty Experts) by an interview - Click to view read-out

Part 2

Prioritize and align features for Phase 1 - goal was to map out the happy journey
Get our creative juices flowing and having fun
Activities : Prioritize & alignment exercise / Journey mapping exercise / Crazy ‘8’ exercise

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Beauty Experts struggle maintaining a personal connection post-consultation due to the lack of paper collateral and internet access in store. Our solution should be a companion tool that preserves human-to-human interaction, aggregates & digitizes current paper collateral, and offers a valuable offline experience —all while capturing insightful consumer data.

CREATE

Working closely with Art Director, we started with a design strategy to come up with an enhanced user flow and identified key screens to tell our narrative.

It was important to map out a complete site map, highlighting which screens was accessible with cellular data as most of the iPads will be used in the basement level with no or slow wifi.

We started off with three key questions that would narrow down product catalogue using an algorithm, supporting Beauty Expert with their client consultation.

UI Designs

UX ANNOTATIONS

Here are some examples from the UX annotation deck to show how it would translate from 1280px down to 350 px. All of the designs were modular to enable easy translation.

USABILITY TESTING

Overall positive- We took all of the feedback and prioritized tasks with the client: Quick wins, Work with UX and Long term (Back-log) We’ll conduct two more usability sessions when the application is in beta mode in New York and China. Program to launch in mid November - North America