Creating cross-channel communication platform for department store and eCommerce< Back to Projects | Next project >
Illum is to Copenhagen what Harrod’s is to London; the great landmark department store. Founded 1891 it was originally a one-store department store. Today the Illum store is host for lifestyle and fashion brands, with a strong presence of it’s own strong private brand. Illum needed a website that would increase the incentive for brands to use and update their content on the Illum website, in order to increase the total shopping experience both off and online, without competing with the physical store. The site is designed to be an eCommerce piece to complement the store, not to replace or augment the physical shopping experience. User Research, Focus Groups, Personas Market research was conducted identifying the most important user groups, followed by focus groups where these user groups gave inspiration to use cases and scenarios. I took part in the focus groups, both in front and behind the one-way mirror. Conversations in focus group gave input for personas and also gave inspiration to functionality. Interaction Design Illum wanted to implement the functionality from SiteCore’s “Engagement Automation" which is a unified system that remembers previous visitor history to continue ongoing, personalized conversations by utilizing the open source platform Umbraco. The system requires solid data from user research and content to match dynamic customer journeys. I was part of the team together with visual designers and developers that executed the interaction to meet this special requirement. Visual Design Once the system and the basic architecture of the site was in place, I lead the design team creating wireframes, functionality descriptions and directed the visual design based on the visual concept established by the advertising agency used by Illum. OUTCOME: The project revitalized the department store's online representation and created a highly personalized engagement platform by incorporating all digital customer touchpoints - including the eCommerce option. Visits and purchases at the physical shops increased and the barriers of reluctancy from shop owners in the Shop-In-Shop department store were replaced by enthusiasm. SKILLS IN ACTION:
www.illum.dk Reference: Mai-Britt Tornhøj, Illum, Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] |