What's making the biggest impact?

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From the initial design strategy sessions, we've defined the goal for this homepage project. The homepage plays a crucial role in representing the brand, introducing updates for the first time, and functioning as a marketing platform. I always begin the project by observing and identifying our main goals with the product team, which includes product, UX, and research, as well as stakeholders such as data analytics, business, SEO, brand, and creative teams. Then, we branch out with various UX methodologies as we work towards the right solution. The first steps of the definition phase are seldom one-way; rather, they are multifaceted, encompassing design strategy sessions, user research exercises, and team collaboration workshops. It's like finding each piece to complete a puzzle. We've outlined the shape of the entire puzzle, but now we must hang in there to find the perfect match for that final piece.

What are the key problems that significantly impact the homepage experience?

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From the initial data analytics using Google Analytics and FullStory, we've already identified some existing problems with the Yankee Candle homepage. We focused on the top priority issues to provide the most impactful solutions: 1) significant drop-offs after the 'above the fold' section; 2) users expecting to learn more about the content and get to know us better as a brand through the homepage experience; 3) identification of the most popular products that people are interested in. These findings are a good validation of our goals and UX methodologies, and help us focus on key areas for this project.

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‍Synthesizing Best Practices from Baymard Institute and Competitive Analysis

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When I start synthesizing, I'd like to group them under our main goals. This way would provide a clear map of how to organize our research insights for the right solution. I usually structure it with a backbone, employing best practices; in this case: 1) sending users to the right destinations quickly; 2) not overwhelming users with excessive choices; 3) convincing users with a trustworthy and credible brand. Then, I'd branch out to specific best recommendations to build a baseline. Once I have built this foundation, I add references from both our direct and indirect competitors. This strategy has been working well when I synthesize the excessive research findings and it gives me a clear, comprehensive overview that directly informs the move to ideation.

Mapping the Customer Journey

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I collaborated closely with the data, brand, and SEO teams to gather comprehensive insights. Once I had collected all the necessary data, I created a user journey map using this information to delve into the backend processes. This effort enabled me to gain a deep understanding of our customers' behaviors and their experiences on our website from an external perspective. Additionally, I aimed to capture a complete picture of where consumers are coming from, their paths through our site, and how they interact with our brand in the external world. This comprehensive view is crucial for obtaining a clear and complete picture of our strategy.

Business Strategy: UX Canvas + Lightening Demo

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It's time to truly understand what the business aims to achieve with these projects. Using the Lean UX Canvas template by Jeff Gothelf and conducting lightning demos, we organized several workshops to align with the business teams. This approach helped us establish a clear business strategy for the process.

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Complete the Puzzle

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So far, I have gathered a total of nine insights: 1) Product Brief, 2) Lean UX Canvas, 3) Lightning Demo, 4) Competitive Analysis, 5) GA, 6) Full Story, 7) Current Homepage Design Audit, 8) Homepage First Impression Test, and 9) Content Strategy & User Journey. Having collected all the pieces, I began to formulate potential key solution features. These are:

• Hero Banner
• Seasonal Campaign & Layout
• Product Discoveries - Thematic Layouts
• Category Listing - Horizontal Scrolls
• Site Stripe
• 15% Sign-Up Modal

These features are poised to be the five most impactful features for the homepage, ready to transition into design ideation with a comprehensive content strategy and component strategy.

Content & Component Strategy: Zoom In for Winning Features

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It was time for fun! Based on the previous formulation, I detailed design concepts and referenced various examples from direct and indirect competitors. The goal at this stage was to extract as many design concepts as possible, with quantity taking precedence over quality. This was the time to explore, experiment, and think outside the box. I aimed to bring all my creativity into this process so that I would have enough elements to work with later when I started building blocks. I came up with nine parent concepts, each having various child elements.

4 Design Concepts

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One of the data points indicated that the current design had an issue with long scrolling, resulting in a significant drop in visitor engagement—32% for mobile and 42% for desktop users stopped interacting after passing the above-the-fold section. This represented a substantial decline, necessitating a top-notch strategy for this crucial area. Overall, the components from all concepts were reduced to 5–7 from the previous 11 on the current homepage, which had become particularly inefficient for mobile usage. Each component was intentionally and carefully crafted to create a winning strategy that satisfies both the content and component strategies. Additionally, we planned to scale up this design across the rest of Newell Brands' DTC brands, ensuring it aligns with our design system for future expansion.

The Selected Design

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I collaborated with the research team to conduct user tests for these concepts. After three rounds of iteration, the final design was selected. A total of seven components were formulated with effective content. The components are:

• Full Width Hero Banner (Seasonal Campaigns)
• Category Navigation (Specific Product/Category Callout)
• Mini Banner (Promotion)
• Tab Product Tiles (Specific Product/Category Callout)
• Slim Banner (Branding Unique Value Proposition)
• Gallery Animation (Featured Personalization)
• Product Listing Carousel (Featured Collection)

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This aligns with our broader goals of creating an immersive introductory experience by presenting our brand identity and showcasing important products, and it seamlessly navigates consumers to where they want to go from the homepage.

Continuous Communication between Leadership and Stakeholders

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Newell Brands is a corporate entity with over 24,600 employees, both nationally and internationally. Effective communication of digital technology product updates within the Digital Technology (DT) team and to partner teams is crucial. Traditionally, we have used PowerPoint to present our designs to partners and leadership. Recently, Newell Brands launched a digital technology email newsletter to communicate any product launches or releases to the rest of the company.

Hand off: Speak in Developer's Language

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As this project served as an MVP for later scaling up, I collaborated with another UX designer to create a full set of components for this homepage revamp. Below are just a few examples of the comprehensive components, each carefully crafted to provide good flexibility to the creative/product team when formulating specific content. All specifications were fully documented and handed off, with ongoing communication with developers to successfully complete this project.