Immersive Storytelling

Overview

The immersive storytelling project was part of a growth initiative centered around a storytelling framework built of re-usable components that are highly customizable and configurable.

The intent was to showcase high-profile brand launches and store events in a way that differentiates both specific brands and Nordstrom itself.

My Role on the Project

As Senior Design Manager, I supported a talented team consisting of four UX Designers, a UX Researcher, and a UX Writer. My role involved not only guiding our team in their day-to-day design activities, but also facilitating collaboration among the diverse stakeholder teams to ensure a smooth workflow. I regularly updated executive management on our progress and achievements, communicated feedback to the team, and made certain that this feedback was thoughtfully implemented to enhance our design outcomes.

4 UX Designers
1 UX Researcher
1 UX Writer
1 Product Manager
1 Program Manager
8 Engineers
3 Digital Merchandisers

Platforms

Desktop Web, Mobile Web
iOS & Android Apps (future)

Timeline

June 2017 - October 2019

Problem Statement

In an increasingly competitive retail market, there is now more than ever, a greater need to differentiate from the competition and attract younger customers who can become brand loyal.

Additionally, there is a need to attract new and exclusive brands to Nordstrom in order to build partnerships to differentiate the overall product offering. Not to mention the need to deliver these experiences with speed.

The Hypothesis

Embedding inspirational content within modernized shopping journeys will allow customers to discover new brands and start to develop an emotional attachment while shopping.

Key Insight: Knowing that brand names are the number one search category on our site, when these customers return to Nordstrom to shop, they will have a growing collection of brands for which to search and shop in the future.

The Approach

Create a templatized system of components to facilitate a repeatable yet unique experience that can be brought to market quickly. These components would then be presented to the user in an immersive way to keep them engaged
as long as possible.

Goals

User Goals

Discover new brands that are
relevant to me

Be inspired by brand collections and the stories behind them

Shop directly from editorial content

Business Goals

Differentiate Nordstrom from other
fashion retailers

Attract new vendors to partner with Nordstrom to tell their stories

Shift brand perception of Nordstrom to be more digitally-focused

Lit Review

Our lit review helped us leverage existing qualitative research from previous studies on preferred design patterns and component concepts.

We also used existing quantitative research relating to customer interest in different types of content (i.e. inspirational editorial images vs. more approachable imagery.)

We were also able to utilize existing data from recent
A/B testing of various components to understand which design patterns would be most successful.

Competitive Analysis

We evaluated other storytelling approaches from brands both within and outside our pool of direct competitors to gain insight and inspiration.

Component Design

Components were designed to accommodate the various types of content that we anticipated being used most frequently.

Example components

Hero image
Outfit component
Image carousel
Auto-playing video
About the brand

Framework Design

We devised templates consisting of components displayed in a specific order to successfully execute a story.

Several components had multiple versions and could be swapped out to accommodate different scenarios.

i.e. Image vs. Shoppable Image

Entry Point Design

Various entry point designs were explored and tested in the usability labs to gauge if users understood that there was more to explore behind the click.

Prototyping

We built multiple interactive prototypes which were tested in the usability labs and reviewed with key stakeholders.

Feedback from the lab helped up refine our navigation and led to the development of an inline product page experience.

Refining the Strategy

Full Page and Modal Experiences

In order to address all navigation scenarios, we decided it was worth the investment to build a system capable of being delivered in either a full page or a modal experience.

Any Entry Point, Same Content

This allowed us the ability to deploy identical content regardless the entry point.
It was a build once, deploy everywhere strategy.

Examples from the Launch

Hero Component

Collection Component

Shoppable Drawer Component

Shoppable Look Component

Brand Identity Component

Footer Component

Conclusion

The MVP product was live for over two months with positive metrics

Next steps included:

Further optimization of components and story template based on test results.
Designing new components to increase the variability of designs between stories.
Creating a demo for vendors with which digital merchandising executives could use to attract and negotiate new partnerships.
Create email templates which drive traffic to upcoming immersive stories
Integrate into Nordstrom’s personalization engine to display stories relevant to specific customer segments.