Staples.com’s just-launched redesign, which streamlines the process of finding and purchasing products from among the more than 40,000 available online, is the result of research that started two and a half years ago, Staples Inc. director of usability Colin Hynes tells Internet Retailer. What started as usability research on the product pages developed into a new understanding that the success of product pages was linked to the usability of the pages that lead visitors to a product page.
At the same time, Staples was doing field research with customers and also looking at the performance of other structural elements on the site; for example, the naming of departments and categories and their organizational hierarchy. Concurrently, Staples was looking at new platforms for the site, both to make shopping and buying faster for customers and easier to operate by the internal team. New branding around the “easy button” brand promise – the tagline on the current multi-media ad campaign -- was also in the works.
As a result of the earlier research data coming in and the new branding effort taking off at the same time, “We decided to redesign the whole site to make it easier,” says Hynes. "The foundational research we started two and a half years ago evolved into further research to support the reinvention of the site and the shopping experience for Staples.com customers.”
Staples used customer persona research at the web site level to design based on specific customer shopping characteristics. The redesigned site is configured to address different customer personas with new and enhanced features such as improved product categorization, “Learn more about” and “Help me decide” features to guide choices among product recommendations, “Easy reorder” lists to speed replenishment, and enhanced package tracking and speedier add to cart functionality.
“The new Staples.com is the site our customers built, resulting in an easier online shopping experience,” says Brian Light, executive vice president of Staples Business Delivery.
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