Client: Hewlett Packard/PTA/BGCA

Service: UX Design Manager/Creative Director

As UX Design Manager (consulting through Crimson Consulting) I was responsible for owning the consumer experience, design language, look & feel and tone of merchant sites and management of the web/visual design and related creative processes (graphic design, layout, copy writing) for both custom and private label deployments. Working closely with product management, managers of web development & business development to define and deliver the customer experience of the product offerings. Also aid in hands on information architecture, interaction design, usability, and visual design, as well as identifying and managing creative contractors and agencies.

Additionally, influencing e-commerce marketing objectives (on-line consumer experience, site navigation, content merchandising and promotion, conversion metrics), as well as translating marketing and business objectives into winning design strategies and solutions that deliver against them.

All the Pieces of the Puzzle

We designed, built and launched two e-commerce web store at the same time. Each of these offerings included not only the web stores themselves, but also included the design and production of physical "plastic" gift cards, virtual "e-mail" gift cards, as well as a Digital Media Player that users could download in order to view movies on their computers.The main objective was to create a "family-friendly" storefront where people could come shop for movies in a safe "controlled" environment. The sites also support the NPO's that are involved, with a portion of the proceeds going to each one individually. We spent a few months on wireframes alone. We wanted to outline as many details as possible during this stage, and as a result we did well over 30 versions of the wireframes.During the course of this project I also wrote and facilitated three separate usability studies. I did two studies on the web storefronts, and one study on the visual impact of the gift cards.

The Storefronts

The home page of Boys and Girls Clubs Video Store storefront.

A search results page of the PTA Video Store storefront.

Each of the sites shares the same IA, and basic UI. They were designed so that with a minimum of effort any number of additional sites could be created in the future.

The Gift Cards

The design of the gift cards was a separate process all its own. We went through a variety of design iterations before we nailed it down.We wanted a design that was not only kid and family friendly, but one that would also jump off the shelf at the local retail outlet. The gift cards for the storefronts are exactly the same except for the NPO logo that appears in the corner. They came in two denominations - $25 and $40. The PTA versions are shown below.