Welcome To The Macy’s Parade!
In this episode of: Wander Where I’ve Been
Macy’s — a brand we all know well, love and trust, and sometimes feel overwhelmed by while trying to shop. I am going to take you through a case study I am calling the Macy’s parade. A parade of categories, events, and in-your-face promotions.
Target Audience
Online shoppers Purchased within the last 3 months
Price conscious shoppers Age Range 30’s-40’s
Research Conducted (Pre-Redesign)
Competitive / Comparative Landscape
Competitive / Comparative Feature Analysis
Contextual Inquiries: 6 People
Usability Testing: 12 people
Heuristic Evaluation
Card Sorting
Macy’s is one of those brands that everyone knows. A household name known for quality products and competitive pricing but these days Macy’s is at a pivotal point. In 2017 they closed sixty-eight of their brick-and-mortar stores and are concentrating efforts in online sales. According to the CEO, they are looking to expand their fast-fashion and trendy products, in order to promote product sales online. That shift has become very apparent online, as well as in-store. It is the tale of two companies. One company providing quality products, content and experiences. The other is more like a a flash-sales, “DEALS” machine.
I learned a lot about Macy’s, it’s users/customers and their issues, issues I cannot wait to show you the solutions to but first some key insights.
Key Insights
Macy’s Brand is highly credible and supportive: Providing customers with multiple support channels
Users felt extremely confident in the checkout process
Users loved and were inspired by Macy’s Editorial content (buried under promotions)
Users felt extremely distracted by promotional options on the homepage
Users felt categories on mega menu were overwhelming: ALL test participants abandoned tasks that required to use of the menu
It was a Macy’s PARADE of CATEGORIES and PROMOTIONS
Macy’s is still and loved and trusted brand, and I have to say, Macy’s has some hidden gems that should not be missed. Once you cut through the parade, there are quality products and beautiful content. When this content was uncovered in usability testing the prototype, it changed faces and the view of the brand. Macy's has an opportunity to delight their current customer base and entice new customers to take another look at their brand.
To walk you through what changes I decided to make, and why I decided to make them, I’d like you to meet Ziggy. Ziggy had some recent struggles with Macy’s.
THE PROBLEM?
THE SOLUTIONS
Building off of Macy’s current offerings, I would like to recommend a few improvements and opportunities to attract new customers and enhance the overarching consumer experience. I approached this as a three phase project starting with the desktop.
1. Redesign The Homepage
Users found some inspiring and beautiful content buried under all of the promotions on the homepage. I surfaced this content to the top of the page and gave Macy’s homepage a higher-end and less cluttered look. The best thing about this, is it was all already there. I just had to bring it to the light.
2. Improve the category navigation menu.
That “overwhelming” mega menu that no one wanted to use, especially poor Ziggy who abandoned her want to find more products. I turned that into an inspirational menu. Added editorial/inspirational collections to promote product discovery and sales.
3. Add A Second Mega Menu For Promotions
While users did want promotions, and like that Macy’s has plenty of sales pricing, they did not like the in-your-face aggressive promos. I’ve solved for this by adding a very special place for those promotions.
USABILITY TESTING
Next up I tackled usability testing. I created three iterations of my solutions and tested two. The first two iterations in mid-fidelity using Sketch.
I immediately starting receiving positive feedback, which was encouraging. I had to fix some things, like adding filtering options on category pages, apparently users really want that. They loved the cleaned up versions on the menus but once they got to landing pages, they were filtering pros. Not initially building that function into my prototype gave users frustrations.
My second iteration of testing, I did some filtering myself. I wanted to test this on some loyal Macy’s customers and see what they thought. Here’s a little of what I heard:
All-in-all, Macy’s is a great brand. With great products. I would love to help users find those products.
Here is a short video walkthrough of the mega menus and homepage.
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