Warm Gun: Designing for Retail

by November 22, 2013

In her presentation at the Warm Gun Conference in San Francisco CA, Carrie Whitehead shared how Zappos Labs works on new retail experiments. Here are my notes from her talk:

  • Zappos Labs created an experiment called Glance that used a stylist to create collections of products around trends or events like weddings.
  • Solve a real customer problem: get out of the office and find out what people really need. If you can, experience these problems first hand.
  • Keep it Simple was a huge theme that can through in Zappos research. This does not mean boring.
  • All your customers will be casual at first -design for them. They'll arrive ready to back-out, you need to convince them otherwise.
  • Launch with must have features only. Keep asking yourself what can you take away. It is much easier to add things than to take them away.
  • Adding a feature can be useful but it can also clutter up an experience.
  • Zappos Glance was accessed from emails, so the interface needed to work well on mobile and tablets. This meant simplifying the information on the screen as much as possible.
  • After launch start collecting feedback, learning, and iterating.